USE OF DAYLIGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26413, 18 March 1947, Page 4

USE OF DAYLIGHT

A COMPREHENSIVE PLAN ENGINEER’S INGENIOUS PROPOSAL P.A. WELLINGTON, Mar. 17. The shortage of electric power in the North Island and warnings that there may be a deterioration in the position have prompted the suggestion that power might be saved through extending daylight saving. A comprehensive scheme of this nature has been evolved by Mr A. H. Larkman, head of the engineering department of the Wanganui Technical College. Mr Larkman’s suggestion visualises the adjustment of clocks so that the normal rising time of the majority of people will coincide with sunrise each day throughout the year. Mr Larkman refers to his scheme as “ 7 o’clock sunlight daylight saving.” He estimates that it would bring about a saving in electric power of 45,000,000 units a year for the whole of New Zealand, including 30,000,000 units saved in the North Island alone. Such a saving, he claims, could be 'obtained without cost to the Government and with considerable financial saving to consumers. A number of authorities to whom a draft of his scheme has been submitted, Mr Larkman states, are of the opinion that his estimate of the saving is conservative. Details of Scheme Explaining his scheme to-day, Mr Larkman said: “My proposal is to advance clocks one minute each day for 180 days from the end of June to the end of December and to retard them one minute daily for 180 days from the end of December to the end of June, arid so take full advantage of the fact that the sun rises a minute earlier each day from mid-winter to mid-summer and a minute later each day from mid-summer to mid-winter. Sunrise is about 7 a.m. in mid-winter and about 4 a.m. in mid-summer, and it is apparent that 180 minutes’ gradual advance and retarding would have the effect of giving us sunrise at the same time of day throughout the year. The whole of the daylight which is normally unused would be made available—three times as much as we now save by our half-hour throughout the year daylight saving method. There would be a substantial decrease in the general lighting load during the spring and autumn and almost a total elimination of both lighting and heatig loads during the summer. • “ This proposal,” he said, “ overcomes the grave objection that our present daylight saving measure helps itself to half an hour of daylight which is not really available in mid-winter. This makes wintry conditions worse than need be as regards temperature and gloom for early risers, and causes an avoidable early-morning demand for heat and light.” Regarding his estimated saving of 45.000,000 units a year, Mr Larkman stated: “This estimate is based on the use of available mid-winter and midsummer demand data for work days, Saturdays and Sundays, and is, in fact, equivalent to 50,000,000 units generated because it does not involve the usual 10 per cent, loss incidental to transmission. Domestic street and shoo window lighting load would be shifted away from the. 4.30 to 6 p.m. tram and electric train loads, and so reduce the worst overall load peak during all but the mid-winter months. People generally would enjoy a greater measure of health because of the increased hours of sunshine, and the use of more daylight would reduce eye sjrain.” Difficulties in the Way

When the scheme was submitted to the Department of Scientific and Industrial' Research, Mr Larkman said, officers reported that the proposal was a sound one theoretically, but that some difficulties might be occasioned in implementing it. Among these aim’ culties were: (1) The trouble attached to advancing and retarding timepieces, (2) the necessity for maintaining standard time for international communication, (3) the unnatural conditons arising from the suns being overhead at 3 p.m. and daylight at answered these objections as follows:—“ (1) We all make use of the radio time announcements and set our time-pieces by them with no feelings of irksomeness. Scarcely any of us expect our watches to behave so well as not to lose or gain a minute or so daily. Many would adjust the regulator a notch or so twice a year and so pick up or drop a minute a day. One has only to experience the discomforts resulting from power cuts to assess the trouble of adjusting time-pieces at its very slight worth. (2) Greenwich mean time, already in use for the purpose, could have its use extended to meet this objection. (3) In reality.. it would be a return to nature. It is present conditions which are really unnatural. Surely most people happening to rise in mid-summer at 4 a.m. instead oi their usual 8 a.m. have been consciousstricken to realise that three hours of sunshine are ordinarily being wasted.