Earth Hour Reports Energy Savings

“It was a huge success,” says World Wildlife Fund spokesman Dan Forman. Twenty major cities and other municipalities participated, many of them soliciting corporations in their locales to turn off their lights as well. Lights at landmarks such as Niagara Falls and the Seoul Tower in South Korea also went dark.
In North America, cities including Toronto, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, San Francisco and Vancouver participated in the shutdown.
In Chicago, lights on more than 200 downtown buildings were dimmed Saturday night, including the stripe of white light around the top of the John Hancock Center. The red-and-white marquee outside Wrigley Field also went dark.
According to electric utility Commonwealth Edison Company (ComEd), during the 8 pm to 9 pm duration, Chicago saved about 7 percent in energy. The 818 megawatt hours of electricity saved are equivalent to nearly 1.3 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions or taking two 400-megawatt coal plants offline for one hour.
Georgia Power customers in Atlanta reduced their electric load by about 4 percent, for an average reduction of 7.05 megawatt hours, or enough electricity to serve 1,750 homes. Ireland saved a reported 1.5 percent in energy the same evening.
Forman says results have been slow to come in because electric utilities aren’t geared to calculating energy savings and making those reports. That itself may be a damning commentary on our electric grid in a time when we need to focus on energy reduction.
The first Earth Hour was in Sydney, Australia, in 2007 and inspired 2.2 million people and 2,100 corporations to shut off non-essential lights and other electric loads. The city reported a 10.2 percent energy reduction during that one hour, the equivalent of taking about 48,000 cars off the road for an hour.
It seems like the United States and North America has some catching up to do. Though as Forman says, “The goal [of Earth Hour] was not energy reduction. The goal was to raise awareness and put [energy savings] on our national radar. It changes the way people think of how they can get involved.” Let’s hope so.
And although the WWF isn’t focused on the results, they are worth looking at just to see what we can do in one hour. Imagine what we could with more constant energy vigilance.