During the period of daylight savings time, which will start on the night between Saturday 28 and Sunday 29 March, with the movement of the clock hands one hour forward, Terna foresees, in the next 7 months, an overall saving in consumption of electricity equal to 555,8 million kilowatt hours.
This is an amount of energy corresponding to the average annual requirement of about 200 families. In economic terms, considering that a kilowatt hour costs the end customer on average about 16,21 euro cents after taxes, the estimated economic savings relating to summer time for 2015 it is equal to approximately 90 million euros.
From 2004 to 2014, the country's overall energy savings amounted to approx 6 billion and 720 million kilowatt hours, equal to an economic value of approximately 990 million euro.
In the spring-summer period, the month that marks the greatest estimated energy savings is April, with 144,2 million kilowatt hours (equal to 26% of the total). In autumn, however, the record goes to the month of October with 147,4 million kilowatt hours saved. This is due to the fact that April has "shorter" days in terms of natural light than the months of the entire period. Moving the hands one hour forward therefore delays the use of artificial light at a time when work activities are still in full swing.
In the summer months, from June to August, on the other hand, since the days are already "longer" than in April, the "delay" effect in turning on the light bulbs occurs in the evening hours, when work activities are mostly finished , and shows less evident results in terms of electricity savings.
It should also be remembered that the greater demand for electricity in the hottest summer months is due to the use of air conditioners, and is therefore independent of daylight saving time, since it is linked exclusively to climatic and temperature factors and not to the greater number of hours of natural light.
