Daylight Saving Time Is Coming To An End, Experts Study The Effect

The daylight saving time will be ending this coming November 6. Its main purpose is to save energy and it has been supported by many. The usual effect of the saving includes long summer evenings. Now, the challenge for the experts is to investigate and prove if the daylight savings could really save energy.

A senior researcher at Oak Ridge National Laboratory that also helped prepare the report for the Congress on the energy effect of extending daylight saving time by four weeks Stanton Hadley. He said that "I could see the answer being either way."

In an interview with Live Science, Hadley shared that it is not easy to study the effect daylight savings would cause. Hadley and his team would need a before and after comparison, in which the state or country has either dropped the change of time or adopted it.

Hadley and his team explained the possibilities that can change the energy use. The experts suggested that people should go outside during sunny evening hours, by which the electricity use can decrease and saving energy can be done at home.

In line, the researchers also saw that people would possibly use more heating during the dark mornings and cool during sunny evenings, hence more energy will be used.

Thus, the Congress required the Department of Energy to research the impact of the daylight saving policy, on how it changes the energy consumption. The experts must study the changes after the policy was implemented.

As follows, the study authors concluded the effect of the daylight savings, after the Congress added four more weeks to the daylight saving time. They discovered that a total of 1.24 terawatts of electricity was saved, or about 0.03 percent of the country's total electricity use in the year studied (2007), and about half a percent of total energy consumption per day during those four weeks. However, there was no evidence that extending daylight saving time altered gasoline consumption. 

#DaylightSavingTime is coming to an end. Be sure to check your smoke and CO alarms when you adjust your clocks this Sunday. Pass it on. pic.twitter.com/BxLuJrUpEl

— Toronto Firefighters (@TPFFA) November 2, 2016

Meanwhile, given the positive effects of the daylight saving time, the clock will change on November 6 at 2:00AM. As for the smartphones, computers, tablets and other digital devices, it will automatically change, according to Commack Patch.