As we approach Halloween, this weekend is especially scary — the clocks go back at 2am tomorrow, and so we say goodbye to British Summer Time and fall back to Greenwich Mean Time, which means we are plunged into darker evenings, although with more daylight in the early mornings.
Apart from the clock change, this weekend also brings more spells of wet weather for many areas as the Atlantic carries on driving depressions towards the UK spurred on by a powerful jet stream, with a possible powerful storm next week loaded with more wind and rain.
Fortunately the Atlantic weather is still fairly mild and also windy — good for helping keep power demand in check and boosting renewable energy supplies from wind turbines. But the clock change will cause an obvious shift in electricity. Each year when the clocks go back in October there is a rise in the average weekday peak demand for power, compared with the week before the clock change, which happens no matter what the weather. And the darker evenings herald the trend towards higher demand during the winter months, which can lead to the National Grid struggling to meet the demand.
A study last year at Queen’s University Belfast found that getting rid of the clock change in October could save households an average £1.20 each day and more than £400 a year in electricity bills. During the winter, there is also increased demand at peak times between 5pm and 7pm, which puts pressure on the National Grid.
“There is no doubt that by foregoing the daylight savings in winter we would save a lot of energy, reduce bills and carbon emissions”, said Aoife Foley, an energy expert at Queen’s University, who also calculated that this would flatten the evening peak curves in energy demand by up to 10 per cent if commercial demand was included. Her calculations did not include potential savings in gas usage, which could result in even greater emissions reductions.
