NO MARKED EFFECT

Evening Star, Issue 19781, 3 February 1928, Page 3

NO MARKED EFFECT

DAYLIGHT SAVING AND LIGHT REVENUE [Special to tub ‘ Star.’] CHRISTCHURCH, February 2. “ What effect is the daylight saving having on the consumption of electricity?” _ That question brought no worried frown to the brows of the municipal electricity chiefs when they were interrogated to-day by_ a ‘ Star ’ reporter. The answer came immediately— v ery slight.” . The actual calculation of the falling off in lighting owing to the summer time regime is a hard matter to calculate. It was pointed out that the only department of electrical supply affected at all was domestic lighting, and domestic lighting current passes through the same meter that records heating and cooking. “ The street lights are not affected, said Mr Hitchcock, the_ manager. “They were practising daylight saving before Mr Sidey ever thought of it. They shine from dusk to dawn.” Daylight saving covers four months (120 days). That means that 120 hours are lost to the department. There are 18,00*0 consumers, whose yearly'lighting amounts to from £3 to £5 each, and the period during the year during which domestic lighting is being used is calculated at 1,825 hours. There are the figures; but there, is a diversity of opinion as to whether there is really a difference of a whole hour, and that makes any calculation uncertain. According to that data the loss works out at something over £2OO a week, but the heads of the department say that in reality it must be well under that—something between £IOO and £l5O. It would be impossible to ascertain the exact total_ from the_ returns, as the concern is increasing its output yearly with the natural expansion of the town, and the returns might well show a good increase over those for the corresponding periods for last year. In spite of the fact that the domestic lighting is diminished slightly, the Gas Company_. whose lighting work has fallen away with the coming of the electric supply from Lake Coleridge, feels no effect at all. “We have only about 2,000 consumers of gas for _ lighting now,” said one of the authorities there, “ and they are 90 per cent, small consumers. Our business has changed its direction since the advent of electric light, and now the trend is towards cooking and heating. I do not think, off hand, that we will be out more than £SO at the end of the period. There is a slightly increased consumption in connection with water heating, which is possibly due to the fact that there is more snort going on during the week, and that will about balance the deficit.” Private individuals in some cases say that there is a little decrease in their electricity bills, so, while the sources of supply, are not bothering about any loss, the consumers are benefiting to a slight degree.