Summer time 2022, that’s when it changes: do you sleep more or less?

DST arriving in Italy. In 2022 we will have to move the clock forward one hour between Saturday and Sunday, March 26 and 27, between two and three. We will sleep an hour less but we will have an extra hour of natural light for several months, until Sunday 30 October with the return of solar time. For many electronic devices such as smartphones, PCs and tablets, the update will take place automatically. Instead, remember to manually move the hands in the case of other ‘less modern’ devices. In the 7 months in which daylight saving time will be in force, according to estimates by Terna – the company that manages the national transmission grid – Italy will save over 190 million euros, thanks to a lower consumption of electricity equal to approximately 420 million kilowatt hours which will also make it possible to bring an important environmental benefit, quantifiable in the reduction of about 200 thousand tons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. In the spring-summer period, the months that mark the greatest energy savings estimated by Terna are April and October. Moving the hands forward by an hour, in fact, delays the use of artificial light at a time when work activities are still in full swing. In the summer months, the ‘delay’ effect in switching on the light bulbs occurs in the evening hours, when work activities are mostly finished and records less evident values ​​in terms of electricity savings. From 2004 to 2021, according to the analysis of the company led by Stefano Donnarumma, the lower consumption of electricity for Italy due to summer time was a total of approximately 10.5 billion kWh and led, in economic terms, to savings for citizens of over 1, 8 billion euros. The estimated economic benefit for the summer time period in 2022 is calculated considering that the cost of the average kilowatt hour for the ‘typical domestic customer in protection’ (according to Arera data) is currently equal to approximately 46.03 cents of euros before taxes. The approximately 420 million kilowatt hours of lower electricity consumption are equivalent to the average annual needs of approximately 150,000 households. In Italy, daylight saving time has been in effect since 1966. It was previously used for the first time in 1916. After being abolished and reconfirmed several times, it was definitively adopted by our country with a law of 1965, in a period in which energy needs were constantly increasing.