How advancing the summer clock can save power The power crisis is a critical factor affecting our economic growth. Almost 70 countries advance their clocks by an hour during summer months to save power Chandra Mohan POWER shortage is a major crisis across the globe. About 70 countries advance their clocks by one hour during six summer months (April-September) to save power. This practice is commonly termed Daylight Saving Time (DST) or Summer Time Advancement of the Summer Clock, which was conceived by Benjamin Franklin for saving candles as early as 1783. It was however only implemented by Germany in 1916 to save fuel in World War I. The UK and USA followed soon. But this practice was abandoned soon after the war. It was only after World War II that it gradually became a common practice. Most areas of North America and Europe, all North of the Tropic of Cancer, observe DST. South of the Tropic of Capricorn, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and southern parts of Brazil in South America and New Zealand and parts of southern Australia observe DST, while most other areas do not. A few countries even stretch this practice to seven months through to October 31. To facilitate adjustment and minimise inconvenience to the public, change is usually shifted to the nearest Sunday. The present Indian Standard Time (IST) is five hours 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Meantime GMT, the global standard. The IST is based on Longitude 82.5°E which passes through Chennai/ Nagpur/ Allahabad and bisects the country. The table shows the sunrise and sun-set times on our current clock (IST) in the eastern and western most regions of India at the beginning of summer, on April 1 and at its end, on September 30. In the intervening summer months days are longer. If the Indian clock is advanced by 1 hour as proposed, sunrise and sunset times in Meghalaya on the New Clock would respectively read 6.00 hrs and 19.30/19.00 hrs. Corresponding times in Gujarat would read 7.30 and 20.00/19.30 hrs. And, that the summer sky in India are bright enough to read at least for one hour before sunrise and, after sunset. Advancement in clock will only mean that you commence work earlier and also end work early and go to sleep earlier. It will, in fact, save you from travelling to work when the sun is way up in the sky and temperatures near the peak. Since the impact of advancement of summer clock in the country is universal and impacts every activity, it will also not create any public inconvenience or dislocation. All it will entail is adjustment of human biological clocks, which takes a few days. But, by making more effective use of daylight by advancing the clock by one hour during six summer months would easily result in power savings of 5-7 per cent, or perhaps more. And, the greatest advantage of this introduction is that it will require no capital investment. It is the cheapest and easiest way of harnessing solar energy, hence its called Daylight Saving Time (DST). It also benefits every citizen and needs no maintenance. The added benefits are that power is saved when: Our temperatures are soaring and power-load is at its peak. Especially in the farm sector due to water-pumping load for sowing of kharif crop (April-June) before the onset of monsoon. Air-conditioning / desert-cooler load in offices also increases power consumption. With daytime temperatures soaring to 45° C, cooling by ACs and coolers is a standard practice in homes and markets. Reservoir level in all our hydro-power stations is at their lowest and they are forced to curtail generation. Load on coal-burning power plants is at its peak. Acute shortage of power will continue to dog India in the foreseeable future and hurt the pace of our economic development. The impact on growth will only get aggravated by: Increasing slippage of Coal India, the giant PSU’s coal monopoly after nationalisation of private coal mining in the 1960s has delayed the commissioning of many new power plants. The frequency of shut downs of existing power plants is also on the increase. Poor quality of coal, with shale content exceeding 35 per cent, also hurts power plant efficiency. This slippage necessitated import of 135 million tonnes of coal (20 per cent of requirements) in 2013-14, up 17 per cent from the previous year. Cost of $6 billion imports will rise sharply as many UMPP’s (ultra mega power projects) based on imported coal under construction at portheads become operational. Such large-scale imports when India sits on the largest coal deposits in the world is indeed a sad story. Recent Supreme Court judgments on cancellation of nearly all coal-mining licenses granted in the last two decades will only aggravate the shortage. Sunrise and sunset times on October 31 are shown in the table above. These point to the possibility of extension of summer time up to October 31, that is from six months to seven. of our critical power-situation such extension merits deeper study. — The writer is former MD & Vice Chairman of Punjab Tractors Ltd., and Swaraj Mazda Limited.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 22:19:30 +0000
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