MR. EDWARD HO : Sir, will Government inform this Council
whether it has calculated the amount, in dollar terms, of
savings in fuel oil if daylight saving time is adopted for
the summer months?
CHIEF SECRETARY : Sir, it is extremely difficult to work
out an exact figure for the saving produced in
in terms of
fuel saving and so on. When summer time was introduced on
the last occasion, we did make some assessment of the
amount of saving of fuel oil. This was in 1973 and 1974.
Our estimate was that there was a saving of around 1 per
cent. During the 1979 oil crisis, daylight saving time was
introduced as one of a package of measures to conserve oil
supplies. The package as a whole is thought to have
reduction in power consumption of about 5 per
achieved
cent but it is not easy to single out the
made by daylight saving alone.
contribution