AS ENERGY PROVIDERS in Ireland continue to hike their prices the government is coming under increased pressure to assist households with the rising cost of living.

While support measures are expected in the upcoming Budget, experts have been floating some more alternative ideas to address the crisis.

Speaking to RTÉ’s Brendan O’Connor at the weekend, Professor Aoife Foley from the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast, said “serious consideration” should be given to forgoing this year’s shift to daylight savings time at the end of next month.

The clocks are due to go back one hour, resulting in slightly brighter mornings but darker evenings.

Professor Foley said she has estimated that the average household could save up to €500 per year on their electricity bills if the decision was made not to turn back the clocks.

“Although it would be darker in the mornings it would be brighter in the evening and that’s when you have the biggest peak in the power system and in the gas network in terms of demand,” she said.

Foley said if commercial bills and gas were factored in there could be significant additional savings nationally. She said the country is currently in an “energy war” and some more creative solutions may be required.

There has, in recent years, been a debate about whether Ireland should switch to the Central European Time (CET) timezone or abandon season time changes altogether. 

There has been resistance to the idea however, not least because a change could result in different timezones in Northern Ireland and in the Republic.

Brexit and the conflict around the Northern Ireland Protocol have heightened concerns about the potential impact of this proposal, John Fitzgerald, Research Affiliate at the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) told The Journal.

Fitzgerald was one of the authors of an ESRI paper in 2014 that considered the possible effects on electricity costs of moving Ireland to Central European Time.

The results suggested that a change would produce very limited savings in peak demand for electricity and possibly some increase in off-peak electricity costs.

Fitzgerald noted that the research found that the magnitudes of the costs and savings would be slightly greater if Northern Ireland changed time zone as well as the Republic.

“That’s an issue we would be more conscious of now [if conducting the research now] with the Protocol because if the Republic was to have a different timezone from Northern Ireland that would cause a certain amount of excitement in the community in Northern Ireland,” he said. 

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“Producing a new border on the island or producing a new border in the Irish Sea if Britain didn’t change simultaneously would raise eyebrows and that’s an issue we would take more seriously today than we would have in 2014.”

Fitzgerald said the savings from a one-hour timezone move would be “peanuts” and that it is likely people would change their behaviours, further reducing any potential benefit.

A more dramatic switch, for example to Atlantic time, which is observed in parts of North America, would be required to make a noticeable difference, Fitzgerald said.

His analysis suggested that, if Ireland switched to Atlantic time, an average of 317 MW in generation capacity could be saved at peak during winter time; this is the equivalent of three quarters of a standard generation station.

However this would have other knock-on impacts such as increasing the difference in time between Ireland and the bulk of other European countries, affecting both business and social life.

So although there may be some savings if Ireland decided to forgo the switch this autumn, it will not be the ‘silver bullet’ needed to tackle the oncoming crisis and is likely too controversial a move for the government to consider.