The change

Daylight saving time, tonight you have to move the hands forward: what you need to know

The hands will have to be moved one hour forward

by Redaction Rome

29 March 2024

Un orologio con l'indicazione delle lancette spostate in una foto d'archivio. ANSA

3' min read

Key points

For Terna during the seven months, the savings amounted to EUR 90 million.
Health impact

3' min read

Daylight saving time is back: on the night between Saturday 30 and Sunday 31 the hands will have to be moved one hour forward. A shift that has effects on health, energy, bills and the environment, to the extent that 336,000 Italians have already signed the online petition to make daylight saving time permanent all year round. This is stated by the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima), which together with non-profit consumerism has launched a signature collection to ask the government for permanent daylight saving time.

For Terna during the seven months, the saving amounts to 90 million euro

According to estimates by Terna, the company that manages the national electricity transmission grid, during the seven months of summer time Italy will save around 90 million euro, thanks to a lower electricity consumption of around 370 million kWh, which will also generate a significant environmental benefit, quantifiable in the reduction of around 170 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

The estimated economic benefit for the summer time period in 2024 is calculated considering that the average kWh cost for the 'typical domestic customer in tutela' (according to Arera data) is currently about 24.3 euro cents before tax.

The approximately 370 million kWh of lower electricity consumption is equivalent to the average annual needs of more than 150 thousand households. From 2004 to 2023, according to the analysis of the company led by Giuseppina Di Foggia, the lower electricity consumption for Italy due to summer time totalled about 11.7 billion kWh and resulted in economic savings for citizens of about EUR 2.2 billion.

"On the energy front," calculated Sima, "the adoption of permanent daylight saving time throughout the year would result in our country consuming about 720 million kwh equivalent and, if only the current electricity tariffs on the protected market are taken into account, in bill savings of about 180 million euro per year. According to Terna, from 2004 to 2022, our country saved about EUR 2 billion and 10.9 billion kWh of electricity thanks to summer time.

Added to this would be a massive cut in climate-altering emissions of 200,000 tonnes less CO2, equivalent to that absorbed by planting 2 to 6 million new trees'.

Health impact

'The changeover daylight-savings time and vice versa also has negative repercussions on human health,' explained president Alessandro Miani. 'It alters the circadian rhythmicity, i.e. the biological clock of our organism, which, in the absence of signals from the external environment, completes its cycle in about 24 hours.

Failure to respect these natural rhythms has effects on blood pressure and heart rate: several studies have attested to a correlation between time change and heart disease, with Stockholm University reporting a +4% incidence of heart attacks in the week following the change to the new time.

There are also sleep problems in a large segment of the population, with negative consequences on concentration and mood and thus on school performance, efficiency at work, personal relationships, etc.

Other studies have also certified a correlation between the change from daylight saving time to solar time and an increase in road and work accidents, while a research conducted in Australia even found an increase in suicides in the first weeks of the time change'. "For these reasons we ask the Meloni government to commit itself to the definitive abandonment of solar time in Italy by adopting daylight saving time all year round. A possibility envisaged by the European Union, which already in 2019 approved a Directive that puts an end to the double time change during the year, leaving wide discretion to the Member States, hoping for coordination between the various nations to avoid repercussions on trade and cross-border movements," Miani concludes.