In our smart-phone connected, social-media fuelled lives we are constant consumers of energy that touches us in ways we take for granted. From the moment we wake up to smell the coffee (or tea if you prefer!) to the time we hit the power-off button on our set-top box remotes, our energy dependency for electrical and electronic devices stays unparalleled to any other form of energy that exists in the universe.


The modern world relies on a vast supply of energy to fuel everything from transportation to communication, to national and personal security to health and lifestyle delivery systems. There is no denying our need for electrical energy as we go about our daily lives.The continuing debate on whether our current resources are enough to manage the energy requirements of a growing population remains unanswered without any concrete solutions in sight.

As much as we would like to ignore, we continue to be a power-hungry nation. Being the 9^th largest economy in the world, the current energy deficit ie: gap between current need vs. availability is tremendous and continues to grow at a pace faster than that of population-growth.

For the past several months, a significant number of members have been vexed about their energy bills from respective power utility companies, especially in Greater Mumbai. To complicate matters, power distribution companies have been non-transparent in communication of charges to users, hiding financials under the backdrop of wheeling losses or passing the blame to state electricity boards.

Via this article and subsequent ones, let us attempt to clarify the underlying calculation of energy usage and how best we can optimise this national resource.

Power is measured in Watts (W), named after the famous Scottish inventor James Watt. One thousand watts of power is equivalent to 1 Kilo-Watt (expressed as 1KW). Energy, on the other hand, is the amount of power consumed over a unit of time (or over 1 hour). In other words, energy is expressed in Watt-hours or Wh. When consumption goes over 3 digits, energy usually gets expressed in Kilo-Watt-hours or KWh. Power companies refer to this as a UNIT.

When power distribution companies such as BEST, Reliance Energy or TATA Power bill consumers, they do so on the basis of the number of UNITS consumed.ie their charges are per unit, or per KWh. Typically in Mumbai, the approximated average domestic end-user cost across various power companies is Rs. 9 per unit (ie: Rs. 9 per KWh).

To cut a long-story short, let us look at what it actually costs for using our utilities. The table appended below provides a snapshot of energy usage for standard home appliances.

Author is an independent energy consultant and a successful start-up founder. Connect with him GlobalLinker by sending an invite to him using his eBiz Card.