Daylight saving starts to make more cents

Continuing power cuts could add muscle to those trying to get summer daylight saving introduced in South Africa.

Already, 30 000 people have signed a kulula.com petition urging the government to introduce the concept. It is widely practised globally, especially in the northern hemisphere but even as close to home as Namibia.

One of its major advantages is a reduction in the use of electricity as people are able to make more use of natural light.

Summer daylight savings works by everyone putting the clock forward, usually one hour, in spring.

This means that it gets light one hour "later" in the morning, although this is not a problem because from spring it is usually light by the time most people rise anyway.

But then people end work and school an hour "earlier", giving them more daylight time to enjoy, particularly during the long summer evenings.

Then in autumn, the clocks are simply returned to normal time when days are shorter and there is less good weather to take advantage of.

The advantages of this system are most acute in more easterly locations, which is why Durban has always pushed particularly hard for it. But even in Cape Town, with its long, late summer evening twilight, there is widespread support.

Another advantage is more people will be at work earlier to exploit cooler morning conditions, resulting in better productivity and requiring less energy for air conditioners, for example.