Daylight Saving Time ends a week later

ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Those looking to catch an extra hour of sleep will have to wait another week for the clocks to “fall back.”
This November marks the end to an extended Daylight Saving Time period, a month longer than previous years. Energy officials hope the move, put in place with President Bush’s signing of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, will reduce nationwide electricity consumption by 1 percent.

“Daylight Saving Time ‘makes’ the sun ‘set’ one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour,” Bob Aldrich, former California Energy Commission spokesman, wrote on the commission’s website. “This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day.”
Beginning this year, the time period started three weeks earlier, on the second Sunday in March, and will last until next weekend, the first Sunday in November. Studies conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation in the 1970s suggest that DST will help the United States trim its electricity usage by 1 percent each day.
“In the average home, 25 percent of all electricity we use is for lighting and small appliances, such as TVs, VCRs and stereos,” Aldrich said. “A good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, we can cut the amount of electricity we consume each day.”
However, a report released by the California Energy Commission concluded that extending DST in March had “little or no effect on energy consumption in California,” based on a statistical analysis. Another recent study, conducted by Ryan Kellogg and Hendrik Wolff of UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Energy Markets, examined an extension of DST in Australia to facilitate the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000.
That study concluded — based on detailed data of electricity consumption, prices and weather conditions — that the extensions “failed to reduce electricity demand.”
The U.S. Department of Energy is in the midst of studying the impact of the DST change and will report back to Congress, which can choose to return to the previous schedule of the first Sunday in April and the last Sunday in October.
Nonetheless, folks will still have to wait another week to catch that bonus hour of shuteye.