Daylight Saving Time Policy and Energy Consumption

Abstract

Daylight Saving Time is argued to be effective in saving energy. Turkey is one of the few countries that annulled the clock changes and remained in the summertime zone in 2016. This paper uses Multiple Linear Regression and Interrupted Time Series methods to study the impact of clock changes on energy consumption and load shift. We use historical energy consumption, electricity prices, and relevant atmospheric essential climate variables data in Turkey between 2012-2020. This paper shows that the Daylight Saving Time policy does not lead to a measurable amount of energy savings. Furthermore, it does not cause a noticeable continuous daily load shift throughout the year. We also claim that our findings should be applicable to those countries such as the United States, India, Japan, Australia or China and as well as continents of Africa and South America, whose latitudes are in between 42.0° north and south of the equator.