An earlier occurrence of Earth Hour in 2016 means there won’t be any statistics on the amount energy saved, says B.C. Hydro.
The global event took place on March 19, with residents turning off their lights between 8:30-9:30 p.m.
Kevin Aquino, B.C. Hydro spokesman, said the fact that the beginning of daylight time on March 12 and Earth Hour were only a week apart meant that Hydro couldn’t “factor in the load change that happens naturally with [daylight time]” because there wasn’t a Saturday in between the time change and Earth Hour to use as a reference point.
Earth Hour normally falls on the last Saturday of March, said Aquino.
Scott Pamminger, City of Nanaimo infrastructure planning and energy manager, said the municipality doesn’t have any statistics to draw from either.
“We’re not able to measure it with what our infrastructure is,” he said.
As part of Earth Hour, the city turned off the lights to the Vancouver Island Conference Centre and the parks, recreation and environment department hosted a glow-in-the-dark skate at the Nanaimo Ice Centre.
While B.C. Hydro didn’t have numbers for Nanaimo in 2015, it did say that there was a 15 megawatt hour reduction in the overall provincial load during last year’s Earth Hour.