Total obscurity savings scandal

The government’s claim that savings were achieved by applying permanent daylight saving time, which puts citizens on the roads in complete darkness, turned out to be empty. Energy Minister Fatih Dönmez has announced very different figures, which have not overlapped with each other since 2019, on the savings obtained from obscurity.

Saying that the 5-year savings were 6.8 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) on November 22, 2021, Dönmez announced the same figure of 6.8 billion kWh for 6-year savings on November 25, 2022. In the last year, people fell on the roads in total darkness for nothing or savings were called. Dönmez also announced two conflicting savings figures in 2019, 9 months apart, one of 1.3 billion kvs and the other 4 billion kvs.

REFERENCE TO THE REPORT DISCLOSED BY THE UN

Minister Dönmez sent a written response to CHP MP Sibel Özdemir’s questions about daylight saving time on November 25 with an urgent note. In his response, Dönmez said: “The savings achieved since the implementation (2016) are about 6.82 billion kWh, and the money equivalent of the savings is 3.97 billion TL under the single tariff and 5 ,94 billion TL according to the rate 3- hourly rate.”

Pointing to the ITU report, which was not made public, Dönmez also expressed the claim that negative effects such as anxiety, stress and depression caused by time changes would be less experienced in the fixed clock app. Commenting on the response, Sibel Özdemir claimed that Dönmez referred to a report that was not yet available and said that the savings figure was not convincing.

They refused a week ago

The proposal to abandon the application of permanent summer time put on the agenda by CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu and to open a parliamentary inquiry on this issue was rejected by AKP-MHP votes in Turkey’s Grand National Assembly a week ago.

According to AKP, this practice saves money, while CHP and the IYI Party say that “waste has increased”. CHP’s Ahmet Akın asked: “The citizen gets up in the morning, it’s dark, he turns on the electricity, where are the savings?” Bedri Yaşar of the IYI Party said: “It is daytime at 08:00 in Istanbul and 08:15 in Ankara. We consume more energy. Just as interest is the reason, inflation is the result, this practice also exists only in Turkey.” AKP Istanbul MP ​​Nevzat Şatıroğlu made a statement saying: “We will not take a step back from daylight saving time.” (Basak Kaya)