Every year we change the time twice: once in March and once in October. Traditionally we are told that this measure is put into practice because in this way we save energy, by concentrating more hours of sunlight when they are most needed, which is during working hours, reducing energy consumption by turning on the lights many fewer hours in companies, and that these are responsible for 80% of the energy consumption of the entire country.
The custom of turning the clock back in winter and advancing it in summer began to be widely used in 1974 in order to make better use of sunlight and therefore consume less electricity after the first oil crisis.
Thus, twice a year Europeans adjust their clocks to comply with Community Directive 2000/84 / EC. To determine the time of the time change, from Europe the particular circumstance was taken into account that in Spain there are two official hours, one for the Peninsula and the Balearic archipelago and another for the Canary Islands which, since 1922, has been one hour per hour. behind the rest of the Spanish.
With the time change in October in Spain, we recover what is considered the country’s official time, which is to go one hour ahead of the time that marks the Greenwich Mean Time (Greenwich Mean Time GMT).
However, is it true that we save energy by changing the time?
The Institute for the Diversification and Saving of Energy (IDAE) states, for example, that the real savings could be as little as six euros a year in the energy bill.
The Spanish Electricity Network (REE), for its part, offers open access data updated every 10 minutes on energy demand in Spain, detailing in percentage terms which energy source is being used at any given time, with both renewable and non-renewable energy sources. .
While it is true that there are differences in energy consumption thanks to the time change (energy consumption is lower after having made the time change), especially considering that we take advantage of more hours of natural sunlight in and consume less artificial lighting and, therefore, less electricity, in recent years , the supposed benefits are much less than each and every one of the disorders it generates.
Curiosities about the time change
Did you know that Benjamin Franklin is credited with coming up with the idea of daylight saving time in 1784 to preserve candles? However, the United States did not institute this measure until World War I as a way to preserve resources for the war effort. The first comprehensive study of its effectiveness came during the oil crisis of the 1970s, when the U.S. Department of Transportation found that daylight saving time reduced national electricity use by about 1% compared with standard time but, as we say, the benefits of the past cannot be compared with the use of energy we do today and its use is far from what it was at the time. Energy saving is increasingly questioned.
Advice
Remember that for the body to cope without problems with the change in clocks, experts recommend gradually modifying the schedule of meals, adjusting the time to go to bed or not taking a nap only on that Sunday.
