Clock goes back an hour on October 1 as the Daylight Saving Time (DST) scheme for this year ends on September 30.

The next DST one-hour time shift would be on April 1 next year.

The government on June 18 introduced the DST as an energy savings measure. Many criticised it and said it was a meaningless step. The Power Development Board says it reduced up to 200 megawatt (MW) power consumption during typical peak hours between 7:00pm and 9:00pm.

As load shedding hovered around 1000MW to 2000MW during the last June-September period, most people did not notice the impact of 200MW power demand reduction due to the DST, PDB says.

Load shedding will continue to nag the country till adequate new power plants come into operation in 2011. This is why the government introduced several steps to reduce power demand and manage the crisis.

The on-going power crisis has already shifted traditional power demand peak hours from the evenings to midnight, according to PDB's data.

Presently the country's power demand shoots to its highest point between midnight and 1:00am, instead of the typical peak hours of 7:00pm to 9:00pm.

In addition, the gap between highest and lowest power demands has reduced to only 300MW to 400MW from the previous trend of 1000MW to 2000MW.