No, setting your clocks back won't lower your energy bill
Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 6, and since it's fall, this biannual hassle at least offers the mercy of being the nicer one where we gain an hour of sleep instead of losing it. But, as Claremont McKenna College's Laura Grant explains at Newsweek, don't expect many benefits beyond the extra rest:
[O]ur laws equate daylight saving with energy conservation. However, recent research suggests that DST actually increases energy use.This is what I found in a study coauthored with Yale economist Matthew Kotchen. We used a policy change in Indiana to estimate DST effects on electricity consumption. Prior to 2007, most Indiana counties did not observe DST. By comparing households’ electricity demand before and after DST was adopted, month by month, we showed that DST had actually increased residential electricity demand in Indiana by 1 to 4 percent annually. [Newsweek]
The Week's Hallie Golden explains more of the science of why daylight saving time is bad for you here.
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