Post lockdown, there has been an increase in the residential power consumption in Chennai
Posted on: 28/Dec/2020 9:25:54 AM
The experts have pointed out that the present work from home or WFH situation has increased the residential power usage. They were of the view that the 2 main factors that have led to this increase were usage of air-conditioners plus absence of consumer awareness. It must be noted that the centre of operations for most businesses has been shifted to residential zones now.
As per Mr. Bala Subramanian, Sustainability Market Analyst, Conserve Consultants Private Ltd, the closure of industrial and the commercial centres have resulted in the reduced usage of power. He threw light on the increased residential power usage now across India plus in Chennai. It was later pointed out by Mr. Rehan Hakim, Sustainability Consultant of Conserve Consultants that people use air-conditioners more.
Usage of a/c throughout the day:
Truth is that earlier (before WFH came) the air-conditioners were used only at the night times but now the air-conditioners are being used throughout the day as many do their work from their homes. It is important to mention that the power that is used to charge mobile phones/laptops, running TV sets etc is just a fraction of power used for running an air-conditioner.
The power usage has been categorised in 2 forms namely active and passive. This was as per Mr. Bala Subramanian. As per him, the active power consumption pertains to the use of appliances in the household and passive power consumption pertains to the energy used by the buildings as a whole. Mr. Rehan Hakim was of the view that many people do not think about sustainability when looking at the households and he wanted this to change. It is worthy to note that energy efficient appliances and sustainable architecture could lower the annual energy costs of a household by 10 to 20%. The important piece of information is that consumer awareness has been increasing in the cities.
