CE Technical Discussion : Bijilee Bachao

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  Jeffrey Arulraj

  Tagging in the participants of the last discussion and MODS
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  This is open for each and every CEan having an idea of power conservation which is the dire need of the hour
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  abhishek.jain203

  Would love to get your feedback and inputs on our website #-Link-Snipped-# that has a lot of tips and ideas on saving electricity at home.
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  Anoop Kumar

  In my views only way to power conservation is to produce more and more clean energy from solar/wind and water.
  
  How about installing wind mills in the middle of river across its length.
  (I know there is lots of research needs to be done )
  benefits:
  

  1. No Land needed and once installed no harm to river either.
  2. Long term beneficiary
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  Abhishek Rawal

  Abandoning old-school appliances can be helpful in maintaining Green world.
  As we all know, New generation appliances are very less power consumer, Let's say TV sets(LED, Plasma) consumes 70% less energy than that of old-school CRTs.
  
  But problem arises is electronic waste. How is it possible to dump it w/o affecting nature?
  Is there any adverse effects on nature due to it?
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  rahul69

  Well for electronic waste, the solution lies in the bio-electronics. Use of Biodegradable components shall help.
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  abhishek.jain203

  Renewables do have the potential to solve all the energy problems in the world but before that we need to make sure that all our appliances are efficient. Until we do that, we will need much bigger and larger generating systems. To give a analogy, if we have shortage of water and we find a new source of water, but there is a hole in the container that we have, how much ever water we may pull out of the source, the water will drain out of the hole and we will need bigger and bigger source making it more expensive to maintain.
  
  As far as electronic wastes are concerned. That's certainly a big challenge and many companies are coming up that are trying to get into e-waste management. Attero Recycling, Eco-reco etc are some of the companies that are working in this area. The whole recycling of e-waste is a profitable business and I am sure many more companies will come up. The only challenge is that people in our country either hold on for old inefficient things for long (till they die) and have an attitude to sell their old stuff. Everyone wants good money out of selling waste. The organized e-waste recyclers find it difficult to shell out that kind of amounts to buy old e-waste (as it is not profitable). The unorganized sector (like raddi and bhangar walas) buys it for good value but uses environmentally harmful methods to process the waste and in fact dumps a lot of it to create more harm.
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  Ramani Aswath

  I may not be available throughout he day to take part actively in the discussion. Here are some thoughts.
  We waste a lot of power in the house. Virtual power. Manufactured consumables represent power that went into making them. Tooth paste, soap and shampoo are packed power.
  
  We tend to be profligate both in use and in throwing away the nearly empty tubes and slivers. After one brushes the teeth, one can usually see gobs of paste sticking to the sink. Actually very little paste is required to clean the teeth. We throw away slivers of soap. They can be attached to the next bar. Likewise shampoo. Is there really any need to lather up the face looking like Santa Claus with a snowy beard to shave? The bulk of the foam is far away from the hair and is good only for ads.
  
  In most houses water to the overhead tank has been pumped up from the sump. The extra water flowing down the sink while washing away the excess soap is power wasted. Worse is the water that keeps flowing while one is busy brushing, shaving or working the shampoo into the hair.
  
  Let us be wise in the use and disposal of personal hygiene products.
  
  Moving on to computers, many do not put the unit to standby. Quite a bit of power is consumed. It is a good sign that a lot of people do put the units on standby, sometimes for hours on end. It is good that computers are put on standby. However, even this sips power. About 5%. Consider the number of such units. The cumulative power is high. Modems are rarely switched off.
  
  Next, the power centre (the other power!) of the house: the kitchen, where the better halves reign. They may even make the lesser halves do the dirty work (If anyone thinks that this is autobiographical, they are right). Kitchen is also where a lot of electric power is consumed.
  
  Mixers and blenders are rarely used wisely. Mostly used at full power. The ground material some times steams. That heat is wasted electricity.
  
  Electric hot plates are power guzzlers. Actual efficiency in terms of heat delivered to the food is often well below 60%. Also the stored heat after switching off is a waste. Induction cook tops deliver 95% power to the food since the power couples directly with the vessel. Intelligently used it is cheaper than non subsidized LPG.
  
  TVs keep running, while the house wife is on the phone or the kitchen.
  Geysers are left on under the impression the thermostat switches off the power. It does. However, it also switches on to compensate heat loss. A few minutes wait does not kill anyone.
  
  Let us save electricity to save ourselves.
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  abhishek.jain203

  Very well said Mr Ramani. And I would like to quote Spiderman's uncle over here: "With great power comes great responsibility" and we need to know how to use power responsibly. Wasting or misusing it is not the right way.
  
  As far as appliances are concerned. It is very important to understand how much electricity every appliance in the house hold is consuming and trying to find ways to reduce the same without loosing much comfort. That is what we are trying to target on our website Bijli Bachao. A few points from my side which I feel are very common with most people are (more details are there on the site):
  
  1) Standby power as you rightly pointed out is one of the biggest electricity drain. Not just for computers and modems but for most appliances. A good example is a DTH box. These days everyone is going for DTH set top box and people like to buy HD and DVR. There is a research from NRDC as well as we have measured it at our own home that the DTH box consumes the same amount of electricity whether you are watching TV or not. In case of HD DVR box it is as much as what a refrigerator may consume in the whole day! In just a Standard Definition box also it is significant.
  
  Appliances like TV and Air conditioner still consume electricity if not switched off from the main supply. The internal circuitry keeps consuming electricity. And most people have habit to just switch it off from the remote. This is the case with most appliances.
  
  2) Air Conditioners are ment to provide thermal comfort and not to create a Kashmir at home. It is important to keep it at right temperature (24-25 degrees) else the air conditioner consumes a whole lot of electricity. It is also important to make sure that the room is properly insulated so that heat transfer done not happen much from outside. Another thing that can help is if one uses ceiling fan along with air conditioner, as it can help keeping the air conditioner at higher temperatures thus saving electricity.
  
  3) One needs to understand that every appliance has a life cycle cost which includes the operating cost or electricity cost. It is not just about the cost of buying an appliance but also cost of using it. And the cost of electricity will surely increase and thus incremental cost for buying the efficient appliances pays off by electricity savings.
  
  4) Even for lighting, it is very important that one does the right amount of lighting and right kind of lighting in the rooms. Task based lighting is quite useful for the same. CFLs are great but it does not make sense putting 4 CFLs of 14W each if a tubelight of 28W can do the job. Also CFLs are point source of light and gives lesser brightness than tubelights. Incandescent bulbs are the worst as they waste 90% electricity as heat.
  
  5) As you rightly pointed out, water heaters should not be left on for longer times as there are standing heat losses. One should just put it on before use and put it off after.
  
  6) Small things like placement of refrigerator can matter a lot as it can increase electricity consumption. Also the way one uses a refrigerator (by stuffing it, putting uncovered liquids, etc) can impact electricity consumption.
  
  A lot of these things are habits and one has to understand the importance of change. And as I quoted earlier "with great power comes great responsibility".
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  Ramani Aswath

  Agree on all counts. All that is needed is awareness. No one intentionally wastes power.
  Unfortunately, ignorance is bliss.
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  pikachu1994

  Some basic suggestions to save electricity in home:
  *Turn off lights and other electrical equipments when not in use.
  *Better close windows and doors when air conditioner is ON.
  *Programmable thermostats keep your room at right temperature at day and night with 10% saving of energy.
  *Periodical replacement of those equipments save more electricity.
  *Use fluorescent lamps because they use less than 75% energy than incandescent lamp.
  *Clean or replace ac filters periodically.
  **At last the natural remedy is planting trees.This is the remedy for most of our problems.
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  Anoop Kumar

  +1 to
  DTH/TV standby, Running water while brushing👍
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  vinod1993

  I have a small doubt to ask.! Sorry if it sounds too stupid. Does High CPU memory usage(for ongoing processes) increase electricity consumption?
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  abhishek.jain203

  vinod1993

  I have a small doubt to ask.! Sorry if it sounds too stupid. Does High CPU memory usage(for ongoing processes) increase electricity consumption?

  High CPU usage does increase electricity consumption as the computer is using most of its resources and also generates more heat. CPU temperature is dependent on its usage and frequency.
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  abhishek.jain203

  On the topic of computers and laptops, Desktops use much more electricity than laptops. Destops are rated at 120 W and above (those with CRT screen are rated at about 250 W) whereas laptops are rated at about 40-50 W. Use of LED or LCD (LED is better) screen over CRT screen should be prefered in Desktops. Laptops are inherently designed for electricity savings as they are more of mobile device that people carry along and thus their battery life is important.
  
  Even for computers one should always look at Energy Star rated laptops and desktops. To identify energy star one can look at the green energy star logo that comes up when the computer stats. Non Energy Star rated computers use more electricity than the energy star rated ones. Energy star rates computers on multiple factors: power consumption while in use, power consumption when system is idle and power consumption while in standby mode.
  
  To give a reference if a 50 W laptop is used for 10 hours in a day (continuous) it will use 0.5 units of electricity which is roughly Rs 2-Rs 5 based on typical tariffs in India. For a month that converts to Rs 60-Rs 150. The numbers for CRT desktops would be about Rs 300-Rs750.
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  [Prototype]

  The element that plays major role in wastage is the human ignorance. You get a call, you'll move outside, talk for hours. Rewind!!! The TV, fan and light are kept on and are running without a purpose. Late night TV shows? Sure, you'll watch and in no time you'll fall asleep, the TV will be on for all the time till you wake up to notice it.
  
  Worst thing, faulty software can be patched, but there is no patch for human stupidity.
  
  Intelligent home control system can be a major energy saver. These system can be built at very economical cost and can result in major savings of power. Many of the Engineering students make that as project, but no one actually goes forward and apply that on at least their rooms ( I did it!).
• 

  Jeffrey Arulraj

  Yup 1 thing as an advice to all the CEans the first people who are living in the coastal areas go for Air conditioners over Air coolers
  
  And in the deccan region go for Air coolers instead of air conditioners
  
  This is due to the varying humidity in these regions if we use Air coolers in the coastal areas the power consumed is larger as we tend to sweat more due to higher humidity caused by the air coollers but air conditioners reduce this and make us more comfortable in a shorter active period of time conserving power