Time to “spring forward”

Tonight’s the night to “spring forward” — set clocks ahead one hour for the beginning of Daylight Savings Time.

I like Daylight Savings Time in the summer, when it extends the hours of daylight after work or school, but I dislike the fact that it causes people to get up in darkness at the beginning and end of DST. (It’s particularly troubling that children need to head off to school in darkness.)

Now comes an interesting story of unintended consequences – it seems that in our modern world Daylight Savings Time (which is supposed to save energy) might actually increase residential electricity demand. Researchers have found that DST does reduce the use of electricity for lighting, but it increases its use for heat and air conditioning. The researchers said that savings from reduced lighting demand are “more than offset by having to turn on the heat during the colder early morning hours,” at the beginning and end of daylight-saving time and when people turn on their air conditioners when they came home from work an hour earlier in the summer months. Those findings make sense; they reflect what happens at my house.

I doubt that this surprising research finding will lead to a change in the laws governing Daylight Savings Time, but it’s a reminder that many of our actions have unintended consequences…