Study shows: Summer time all year round saves energy
Korbinian von Blanckenburg, Dean of the Department of Economics at the Technical University of Ostwestfalen-Lippe, is researching the topic of time change. In his study, the power consumption of private households was looked at and calculated in a scenario with winter time all year round and summer time all year round. It has been shown that the time change brings no advantage, he explains in an interview with ZDF. In fact, it has been shown that a year-round summer time would have savings potential of around 0.5 percent of the annual electricity consumption, at a price of 0.39 euros per kilowatt hour that would be 516 million euros a year.
The reason is that one would make better use of the evening light and move leisure activities a bit more into the evening, and that saves energy, says von Blanckenburg. The Federal Environment Agency also reports that due to the time change in summer, the lights are actually turned on less in the evenings. Conversely, in spring and autumn, this means that more heating is used in the morning hours. In fact, you ultimately don’t save any energy by making the switch. This is also the opinion of Stefan Kapferer, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW), who said in a press release from 2018: “In fact, turning the pointer does not bring any noticeable energy savings. The energy industry has not been able to for years relevant effects on power consumption.” Rather, one has to modernize radiators, for example, because every third heating system in Germany is 20 years old and older. In the case of electronic devices, one should also include more electricity consumption in the purchase decision, this would be an effective approach to saving energy, according to the BDEW.
Why hasn’t the time change been abolished yet?
Actually, the EU Commission already decided to abolish the time change in 2018, but there are a few hurdles in the implementation. The basis for this decision was a survey in the EU with 4.6 million people, which decided to overturn the time change. This seems to be a lot of people, but it should be said that this is just one percent of the EU population and the majority of Germans took part in this survey, according to the MDR. The time change is probably particularly unpopular among Germans, around 80 percent of Germans consider it pointless, reports the NDR. It is also reported that doctors estimate that it takes eight to 14 days for the body to get used to the change. The health effects on the biorhythm are comparable to a mini jet lag. On March 28, 2021, summer time should actually have been switched over one last time, according to the proposal for an EU directive, but this means that each member state would have had to decide in April 2020 which time standard would apply in the future, this is mainly as a result of the corona crisis not happened, so the portal timeanddate. The next step would be the decision of the European Council, but no decision has been made here either. It is not yet known when the time change will actually be abolished. It is also not known whether there will be permanent summer time or standard time in the future.
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