When summer temperatures rise and utility companies plead with customers to shift their energy use to “off-peak” hours, people respond – by using more electricity, according to a study of a decade’s worth of data from the Washington, D.C.–Baltimore area by J. Scott Holladay of the University of Tennessee and two colleagues. Consumers do raise their electricity use during the early hours of the day but then fail to compensate with evening reductions, leading to overall increases in electricity generation and zero apparent reduction in power-grid stress. There are potential climate consequences too: The increased power use on days when utilities called for conservation led to an average 35-ton increase in carbon dioxide emissions, the researchers say.
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