End daylight savings time, cut CO2

The clocks went back this weekend as British Summer Time came to an end, giving us all that fabled ‘extra hour’ of sleep.  It’s an annual ritual, and a thoroughly confusing one for people new to the country. It certainly confused me when I moved back to the UK from Africa. I’m still not sure I completely understand it, despite reading an entire book on it, David Prerau’s Saving the Daylight.

Ostensibly, moving the clocks forward an hour in summer makes better use of evening daylight. The flipside is the darker mornings. It’s an idea that’s been kicking around for a long time, but which came to prominence when a man named William Willetts thought it up again, mainly so he could play golf after work. After years of diligent but fruitless campaigning, it was finally introduced in 1918 as a wartime measure. The Germans had done it, and to save energy on heating and lighting, the British did too.

Summer time is the exception in daylight savings – the clocks go forward, and then revert to standard time. There is currently a lively debate over whether we should just scrap it altogether, and stick with the summer time all year round. We wouldn’t put the clocks back, and we’d enjoy those longer days in the winter too. After all, if daylight savings time is so great, why do we only have it for half the year? We could move everything forward an hour, putting us in the same time zone as the rest of Europe, which would have advantages of its own.

There are a number of good reasons for moving to this ‘single double summer time’, as it appears to be known. It’s better for retail and for sporting events. It would create jobs in the leisure sector, and according to one campaign, it would add £3.5 billion to the UK’s tourism sector. It means more people are driving home in daylight. There are more accidents in the evening than the morning, as people are tired. Better visibility would reduce road accidents and could save an estimated 104 lives. As if that wasn’t enough, it would also be good for the climate.

The peak demand for electricity is between 4-7 in the evening, as people get home and cook their supper. Under the current setup, we do so in the dark during the winter months, adding to the burden on the national grid. At the same time as we’re firing up kettles, ovens and stoves, we’re also turning on the lights. As energy campaigners know, it is the peaks that are the biggest problem in energy conservation, and the main reason why we still use coal burning power stations. They can come online in seconds at peak times, and so are kept ticking over constantly, ready to kick in to meet sudden rises in demand. Anything that reduces the peaks is a welcome step in reducing our energy demand, cutting energy use overall, and coal use in particular. Since keeping that reserve capacity is expensive, it could also lower our electricity bills.

According to one daylight savings reform study, staying at Summer Time all year would save us 2.78 Mwh of electricity a year, or 1.2 million tonnes of CO2.

So what’s not to like? Only the long dark mornings for Scotland, apparently. Too bad Gordon Brown is Scottish.