Earth Hour (2) - Measuring Significance

On the topic of Earth Hour, I've always been curious to know how significantly the 1 hour of lights-out contributes to the environment, i.e. how much of a difference Earth Hour actually makes to the consumption of electricity. A study done by Olexsak and Meier in 2014 sought to investigate exactly this. They analysed and evaluated energy-saving behaviour in 10 countries, namely Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Ireland, Sweden, United States and Canada. 274 measurements of observed changes in electricity demand from Earth Hour activities were conducted for 6 years, from 2007 to 2012. The results were as shown below: 

Table of recorded Earth Hour demand changes in various countries. 

Source: Olexsak & Meier (2014)

The negative values in the table represent an increase in electricity demand. On average, they found that electricity consumption across 10 countries during the 1 hour fell by 4.0%. On the extreme ends, Canada achieved the highest electricity demand reduction of 28.0%, while New Zealand saw an increase in the demand by 2.1%. From the results above, the authors evaluated that just a short period of time of mass individual energy behaviour change can cause significant shifts in the demand for electricity. This thus shows that Earth Hour activities for certain countries do have an impact, although the observed 4% level of energy conservation is still negligible or minimal, not enough to significantly reduce global warming effects. Alongside analysing the demand changes during Earth Hour, the authors also discuss other short-term events or instances which can lead to coordinated reductions or increases in electricity usage. Some examples include crises and emergencies leading to a conservation of energy, television pickups where people tune in to an anticipated big event on TV at the same time and electricity usage increases, and civil protest, as was the case for Iran in 2009 where protesters coordinated the usage of high-energy appliances in order to create a nation-wide blackout. This was particularly interesting as it shows that collective action can contribute to drastic changes, and finding more of such events and analysing their associated electricity demand changes can help governments to structure their policies around targeting these events. All in all, electricity consumption during Earth Hour does have an effect on the environment, although more research and measurements need to be done for other countries, and we should ideally aim for a higher rate of decrease in demand. 

References: 

Olexsak, S. J., & Meier, A. (2014). The electricity impacts of Earth Hour: An international comparative analysis of energy-saving behavior. Energy Research & Social Science, 2, 159–182. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2014.04.014