Paper Conference

2018 Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild co-organized by ASHRAE and IBPSA-USA

     

Do Office Buildings 'Save' Energy in the United States Due to Daylight Saving Time (DST)? a 50-State Simulation-Based Study

Tarek Rakha, Yuanyue Chen, Christoph Reinhart
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Abstract: This paper investigates the “savings” in Daylight Saving Time (DST) through a comprehensive simulation-based study. A United States Department of Energy (US DOE) core and perimeter reference small office building was simulated with and without DST for each state across the seven US climate zones using benchmark inputs. The “lightswitch” model was used to represent probabilistically-valid user behavior for lighting energy, using DIVA for Grasshopper as the front-end for Radiance and Daysim, and resulting schedules were used as input for the EnergyPlus thermal zone models, using Archsim for Grasshopper. Results demonstrate a range up to 7% lighting energy savings when DST is not applied in 36 states. On average, the application of DST did not save energy in simulated small office spaces across the country, and caused an increase of 0.1% in total energy consumption. The paper concludes by discussing the validity of continuing to apply DST in the US.
Pages: 21 - 28
Paper:
simbuild2018_C004