Would South Africa benefit from Daylight Savings Time?

Lester Kiewit speaks to Dr Jason Samuels, an adjunct lecturer at Stellenbosch University’s Industrial Engineering Department. He is the co-founder and MD of the Stellenbosch spin-off energy company GreenX.

Listen below.

President-elect Donald Trump has reiterated his pledge to cancel Daylight Savings Time (DST) in the United States, calling it inconvenient and costly.

DST is the practice of setting clocks forward by one hour during the summer months to extend evening daylight.

DST aims to make better use of natural daylight and save energy.

During winter, clocks are set back 60 minutes, returning to Standard Time.

Samuels has carried out a study to see if South Africa would benefit either from DST or having dual time zones.

The study zoned in on 53 local schools.

"We have an indicative high-usage school and an indicative low-usage school, and for both of them we see the peak of the schools' energy usage is about two hours before noon-time."

- Dr Jason Samuels, Industrial Engineering Department - Stellenbosch University

Samuels says these results lead to a 'daylight savings time-esque' argument for starting school slightly later and lining up the school's peak energy usage with solar resources.

"That will help our national power utility in the peak times... If we move our 20,000 schools out of that peak time, it's going to save a lot."

- Dr Jason Samuels, Industrial Engineering Department - Stellenbosch University

Samuels says it makes sense for South Africa to align its operation to the resources it has.

"So, I'm for actually moving schools' start times a bit later to match with the energy resources we have."

- Dr Jason Samuels, Industrial Engineering Department - Stellenbosch University

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