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Daylight Saving Change Saved No Power
Brett writes "Results from energy companies are coming in, and the word is that moving Daylight Saving Time forward three weeks had no measurable impact on power consumption. The attempt by the US Congress to make it look like they were doing something about the energy crisis has been exposed as the waste it is. But the new DST is probably here to stay — letting the bill expire would mean re-patching a lot of systems again next year. So much for saving energy."
Just two quick examples of the COST of the change, due to lost productivity - I live in the Eastern US, and someone in Ireland missed a conference call with us because everyone on both sides of the Atlantic thought that Ireland was always 5 hours ahead (for some reason, people found it impossible to fathom that this wasnt the case if we changes our clock and they didn't, but whatever). Example number two - a contractor in brazil was going to take down our servers at 5:00 EDST but actually took them down at 4:00 since they didnt know about the time change.
The people that know the most of anybody on the planet about forecasting the effects of DST sit about 20-50ft from me. We develop software that is designed to predict electrical and gas usage based on factors such as weather, time of day (including DST), holidays, etc. I wish they had asked us our opinions or at least used our software to forecast the effects of their new policy before enacting it. You see, DST was designed before A/C was in widespread use. DST saved electricity by shifting working hours into more daylight. However, with the advent of huge A/C and heat-pumps deployed in every office, factory and store in America, DST now shifts the workday into hotter hours. As a result the DST effect has slowly dwindled (with a little work I could tell you just how much it has dwindled), and will soon reverse. The new DST times are more than likely to accelerate the problem.
No man is an island... But I wouldn't mind having a bigger moat.