What Does Daylight Saving Time Really Save?
DST can coordinate societal shifts to better use daylight…but at a cost.
You would think most states have more pressing issues to confront these days, but legislation on the measurement of time is one of the perennial favorites in our nation’s legislatures. There is always someone passionate about the horrible costs or enormous benefits of Daylight Saving Time (DST) (or, closely related, the “correct” time zone for their state). In the last few years, more than a dozen bills have been introduced to change a state’s adherence to DST.
This year, California has gotten into the game (and not for the first time). Assembly Bill 807, signed by Governor Brown last week, is a first step in a multi-part process that could eventually undo the state’s 1949 adoption of Daylight Saving Time. Advocates argue that it would avoid the semi-annual clock adjustments that disrupt our sleep and schedules, and that it would reduce energy use.
These proposals trigger the retelling of the probably-not-apocryphal story of the gardener who remarked that DST is wonderful because the extra sunlight makes tomatoes grow faster. Let us now pause to chuckle smugly, because we all know that DST does not change the amount of light any location receives over a 24-hour period.
Many of us, however, seem to think that the timing of human behavior is as immutable as the rotation of the earth. Op-eds, office discussions, and even news reports on the subject are filled with assertions that changing how we designate time necessarily gives us more or less time for some outdoor leisure activity, or means that we will engage in some task when it is light or dark.
It’s possible that some folks making these arguments should not have been chuckling two paragraphs ago, because they actually do think that the designation of time changes the total amount of light. But more likely, they think that humans would not adapt at all to changing what is a completely arbitrary numbering system for the hours of the day, that they would robotically still perform each activity at the same clock time. [Aside: I suppose that is an antiquated use of the term “robotically” from the days when we thought that robots, unlike humans, would have little or no ability to adapt to a changing environment. How quaint.]
Benjamin Franklin argued that DST would save energy (you knew I would get around to an energy angle), and many policymakers today use that argument to support the practice. But two excellent studies (here and here) have found essentially no impact on energy consumption. There are many reasons, but surely among them is that humans can adjust their schedules to a renaming of the hours.
But wait, you say, I can’t simply adjust my schedule, because it depends on the schedules of dozens or hundreds of other people — my family, my coworkers, the operator of my neighborhood coffee shop, whoever controls the start time at my kids’ schools,…– and we would all have to coordinate on the readjustment.
That’s right!! The numerical designation of hours is completely arbitrary, but it is still crucial for coordinating activities. That’s why there are real benefits to adjusting those designations as the amount of daylight changes over the seasons.
In December, when we get about 9 ½ hours of daylight in Berkeley, we need those hours to accomplish everything our busy lives demand, so most of us (reluctantly) start our days before the 7:21 AM sunrise. But in the June, when we get 14 ½ hours of daylight, maintaining the same clock schedule would mean waking up hours after the 4:47 AM sunrise. We’d like to shift our schedule to start the day earlier in the summer, but not if stores are closed, our work hours are unchanged, and our favorite morning radio/TV shows haven’t started yet.
DST coordinates a shift of all activities to start earlier on summer days when there is lots of sunlight, and later on winter days when we’d rather not leave for work — or have children leave for school — in darkness.
DST is certainly not costless. The shifts between DST and Standard time are jarring for many people. Research suggests there may be a rise in heart attacks, auto accidents, and other health risks on the day after the changes, particularly the March spring forward, when we “lose an hour”. But sticking to a single time would also have adverse effects, effects we can’t measure very well today, because most of the country has been on DST since at least the 1960s.
Permanent DST would likely lead to more pedestrian accidents on winter mornings, as more adults and children venture out in darkness, with the sun rising as late as 8:21 AM in Berkeley. Permanent Standard time would likely reduce sleep hours on summer mornings as daylight pours in before 5 AM, with adverse effects on health, as well as leaving less evening time for outdoor exercise and leisure.
Plus, there would be increased costs due to coordination failures. More workplaces, restaurants, stores, and schools would establish their own idiosyncratic summer and winter hours in order to adapt to the seasonal changes in daylight. (Many hardware stores and restaurants already do this, even with the current DST shifts.) This would create a multitude of problems for the workers, students, and customers who also have to deal with other institutions that would not change their hours or would change them differently.
And that’s even when the changes are communicated well to the relevant people. Inevitably, there would also be an increase in workers, students and customers arriving to find closed doors, because they forgot to check operating hour changes.
DST’s energy impact is likely miniscule, but there are weightier arguments for and against it. I suspect that most people prefer Standard time in the winter and DST in the summer, but hate the transition between them. Still, sticking to one or the other year-round would lead to inconvenient timing of many activities or, in many cases, would increase uncoordinated seasonal schedule changes, reducing the fundamental value of standardized time. Are the disruptive twice-yearly transitions worth it to maintain better coordination? That’s the debate we need to have about daylight saving time.
I tweet energy news stories/research/blogs most days @BorensteinS
Suggested citation: Borenstein, Severin. “What Does Daylight Saving Time Really Save?” Energy Institute Blog, UC Berkeley, July 2, 2018, https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2018/07/02/what-is-daylight-saving-time-really-saving/
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Severin Borenstein View All
Severin Borenstein is Professor of the Graduate School in the Economic Analysis and Policy Group at the Haas School of Business and Faculty Director of the Energy Institute at Haas. He received his A.B. from U.C. Berkeley and Ph.D. in Economics from M.I.T. His research focuses on the economics of renewable energy, economic policies for reducing greenhouse gases, and alternative models of retail electricity pricing. Borenstein is also a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA. He served on the Board of Governors of the California Power Exchange from 1997 to 2003. During 1999-2000, he was a member of the California Attorney General's Gasoline Price Task Force. In 2012-13, he served on the Emissions Market Assessment Committee, which advised the California Air Resources Board on the operation of California’s Cap and Trade market for greenhouse gases. In 2014, he was appointed to the California Energy Commission’s Petroleum Market Advisory Committee, which he chaired from 2015 until the Committee was dissolved in 2017. From 2015-2020, he served on the Advisory Council of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Since 2019, he has been a member of the Governing Board of the California Independent System Operator.
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The solution is simple – spend summers in the Northern Hemisphere, winters in the Southern Hemisphere
Daar friend’s please leave the time as it is please in the name of Jesus I don’t want my kids in the dark waiting on the bus in the name of Jesus I’m begging for mercy I live in Kansas it’s to dark for us to wait on the bus thank you God bless my dearest friends thank you so much
I’m up for year round DST….
Daylight savings time was founded on a premise that it would save energy, which has been proven false. So instead of correcting that decision, the ‘politicians’ lean on arguments with little to no economic or scientific justification. The coordination argument – exists only because of the changes dictated by daylight savings time. The western world survived for hundreds of years without daylight savings time. Just repeal it and save all of us the unnecessary inconvient twice-a-year clock and schedule changes.
For hundreds of years, noon was high noon, different everywhere and time from one noon to the next varied, but was almost never 24 hours exactly.
It would be interesting to see the interaction of DST and the duck curve. e.g. does DST move dinner electric load into higher solar production times? Does DST save carbon without saving energy? Will DST matter more as cooking upgrades from indoor chemical combustion to induction?
A study showed that violent crime spikes at the time change each year. https://www.livescience.com/60806-daylight-saving-time-linked-to-assault.html
I think the idea of daylight savings is that the humans are adaptable, and making them work during daylight saves electricity.