Why did daylight savings time start?
It was first proposed by Ben Franklin to the French as a joke. I t was later taken seriously by William Willet, who said that we wasted daylight hours during the summer. One of the major reasons given for observing DST is energy conservation. Theoretically, the amount of residential electricity needed in the evening hours is dependent both on when the sun sets and when people go to bed. Because people tend to observe the same bedtime year-round, by artificially moving sunset one hour later, the amount of energy used is theoretically reduced. A 1975 United States Department of Transportation study showed that DST would theoretically reduce the country’s electricity usage by 1% from March to April, if implemented during these months.[3] These numbers have been supported in Mexico, which began implementing daylight saving time in 1996. Evaluations show national savings of 0.7% of national electric consumption (1.3 billion KWh TWh) and reduction of peak load by 500MW[4]. Part of the reason
