‘Daylight Saving Time not practical in CNMI’

Implementing Daylight Saving Time in tropical places like the CNMI may not be of much help compared with the U.S. and Europe, which experience “daylight” even up to late evening.

Local authorities said during yesterday’s “Energy Conservation Program” briefing at the Governor’s Office said that DST usually works in areas that have longer daylight.

The idea of DST is simply to make better use of daylight.

“I know it’s being done in the States. It’s because it’s still bright in some areas there at 930 pm. It’s not the case here,” said Babauta.

Energy Division and Commonwealth Utilities Corp. resource persons said that the CNMI may only be able to have DST for 30 minutes.

DST is popular in countries that are near the North or South Pole because of the longer period of daylight especially during the summertime.

Those places near the equator, day and night are nearly the same length (12 hours).

As such DST is not much of help in the tropics and countries near the equator.

During DST, clocks are turned one hour forward beginning at 2am in the U.S. and 1am in Europe.

The U.S. observes DST from April to October but reports said that this period may further be extended for another four months.

“DST ‘makes’ the sun ‘set’ one hour later and therefore reduces the period between sunset and bedtime by one hour. This means that less electricity would be used for lighting and appliances late in the day,” said a website.

It says that a good percentage of energy consumed by lighting and appliances occurs in the evening when families are home. By moving the clock ahead one hour, it can cut the amount of electricity consumed each day.

CUC said earlier that CNMI residents consume more power in the early morning when people wake up and prepare for work and school and at early evening when they get home.

Saipan consumes 360 million kilowatts a year, or an average of 41 MW daily or a high of 60 MW during peak usage.

The government has began its own energy conservation program, providing agencies with incentives if they save funds on power use.

The government has also partnered with local hardware stores to promote the use of compact fluorescent light bulb.

On Aug. 6 and 13, people can buy one CFL and get one free at Ace hardware, YCO True Value Store from 7am/8am to 12 noon.

Buyers need to look for those with “Energy Star” CFL bulbs.