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Lighten up! MEP calls for longer summer time (19/2/09)

February 19, 2009 at 4:24 pm Leave a comment

Extending summer time by one month could save enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes a year, the European Parliament was told today. Irish MEP Avril Doyle has called for a review of the EU Daylight Saving Time Directive to maximise the economic and environmental benefits associated with the summer period.
Under EU law, summer time begins on the final Sunday in March and ends on the last Sunday in October. But Ms Doyle said evidence from the United States shows that extending the ‘stretch in the evenings’ reduces energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
‘In 2005, the US added three weeks daylight saving time in the spring and one week in the autumn. A report by the US Department of Energy found it saved enough electricity to supply one hundred thousand homes per annum,’ said the Fine Gael MEP.
She also cited a recent University of Cambridge study which said extending summer time would reduce electricity demand during the peak period from 4pm to 9pm, when many of the more expensive and carbon-emitting ancillary power stations are switched on.
Ms Doyle, who drafted a key EU report on trading emissions last year, has called on the President of the European Parliament to consider the plan as a step towards the EU target of keeping temperature gains below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.

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