Unbiased Information and Reviews on Appliances, Solar and Saving Electricity

Turning Green – Bijli Bachao case study – Mr. Amit Garg

By on August 27, 2015

We recently started doing energy audits at some homes in Mumbai and we started it with some of our friends. We had interesting observations during the audits and we thought of adding them to our “Turning Green” case studies. We did assessment of the latest electricity bills of these homes and also tried assessing the appliances and their electricity consumption. In this article we will present the assessment of Mr. Amit Garg from Mumbai.

Assessment of September 2012

We did an assessment of Mr. Garg’s house for the month of September 2012 in which his consumption was 465 units. His is a 3.5 BHK apartment with a total of 4 family members: 2 Adults and 2 kids. He did not use air conditioners in the month of September, as there were good rains in Mumbai in that month. His is an upper middle class family with most modern gadgets in the house. Considering the profile his consumption was decent but still there was some scope of improvement. Here were the observations:

  1. The biggest contributor to his electricity bills was his refrigerator. He has a 2 door, 560 lts, LG refrigerator that has a water and ice-dispensing outlet. On measuring the refrigerator we found that it was consuming 3.5 units in a day, which means a good 100 units in a month.
  2. The next big component (with 84 units) in his electricity bills was his entertainment system setup that included: a 42-inch LCD TV, a set-top-box with DVR and a 3-2-1 Bose Home Theater system. The whole system was connected from a single point and the switch was kept on for all 24 hours and the system was switched off only from remote. It was observed that:
    1. 42-inch LCD television was consuming 100 Watts.
    2. The DVR Set-top-box was consuming 25 watts when in use and 20 watts when switched off just with remote.
    3. The Bose Home Theater system was consuming 42 watts in use (at the desired volume setting) and 30 W when just switched off with remote. The power consumption increased when the volume was increased.
  3. Ceiling Fans was the next with contribution of about 80 units.
  4. The other big contributors were:
    1. Water Heaters: about 56 units a month.
    2. Washing Machine + Cloths Dryer: about 40 units a month.
    3. Computer (1 Desktop + 1 Laptop): about 30 units a month.

Suggestions Made

  1. The first target was refrigerator. As the refrigerator was big, the consumption was expected to be high. But we observed that the water and ice dispenser was left open from inside most of the time. The suggestion made was to cover the dispenser from inside. We also advised to keep the thermostat temperature to highest possible setting.
  2. The home entertainment system was leaking a lot of electricity (about 40 units every month) just because they were not being switched off from the plug point. There was a good scope to cut it down.
  3. Based on the usage, we suggested that some of the ceiling fans could be replaced with energy efficient ceiling fans that could cut down electricity consumption of those fans by about 40%. The payback would be in one and half years.
  4. The fourth and final suggestion was to reduce use of desktop and use laptop more.

The suggestions were made recently and we are waiting for the feedback. We will update the article when we get the response from Mr. Garg. Till then enjoy reading Bijli Bachao!

About the Author:
Abhishek Jain is an Alumnus of IIT Bombay with almost 10 years of experience in corporate before starting Bijli Bachao in 2012. His passion for solving problems moved him towards Energy Sector and he is keen to learn about customer behavior towards Energy and find ways to influence the same towards Sustainability. .

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