HOUSEHOLD ELECTRICITY

BILL CALCULATION
A Case Study
By Akhil.G
Roll no. 17
Electricity meter
• Electricity meters read in kWh (kilowatt-hour)
• this is a unit of energy: power times time
• 1 kWh is 1,000 W over 1 hour = 3,600 seconds
• or 1 W over 1000 hours, or 100 W over 10 hours
• thus 1 kWh = 3,600,000 J (= 860 kcal)
• My electricity bill indicates a cost of Rs.10 per kWh
• try getting 860 kcal of food for Rs.10
• Just for a reference a bag of chips that cost Rs.10 has 160 kcal
 Measuring your electricity consumption
• All houses/apartments have
single phase 2 wire 240v 50 hz
energy meters to monitor
electricity usage
• this is what the bill is based on
• Dials accumulate KWh of usage
• Disk turns at rate proportional to
power consumption
• Kh value is the number of Watt-
hours per turn (1 Wh = 3600 J)
• The dials accumulate the energy
consumed and the bill is calculated
by subtracting the previous reading
by this reading.
Digital Meters
• Digital meters are becoming
more pervasive lately.
• One of the most significant benefits
of using Digital meter is its
accuracy. In nonlinear loads, it’s
metering is highly accurate and
free from observational errors.
• The readings of a digital meter is
extremely easy to gauge as the
outputs are automatically
displayed in numbers through a
seven segment display. Unlike the
analogue type which takes time,
resulting in huge chances of
occurring mistakes especially for
those with poor eyesight.
Spring 2013 6

• It also helps in reducing theft and corruption on electricity

distribution network with electronic designs and prepayment
interfaces.
• Several digital meters feature protection from sudden shifts in
currents as well.
• It measures the electricity in both phase and neutral lines and
calculate power consumption based on the larger of the two
currents, thereby helps in improving the cost(comparatively
cheaper than analogue meters) and quality of electricity
distribution. With the advent of integrated circuits, sizes and
cost, the power requirements of digital meter has been
drastically reduced.
Example day electricity profile
• Run microwave (1000 W) for 12 minutes total (0.2 hr)
• 0.2 kWh
• Clothes washer (300 W) for 1 hour
• 0.3 kWh
• Clothes dryer (5000 W) for 1 hour
• 5 kWh
• Movie on TV/DVD (200 W) for 2 hours
• 0.4 kWh
• Desktop computer (100 W) on all day
• 2.4 kWh
• Refrigerator (average 75 W) on all day
• 1.8 kWh
• Lights (total 400 W) for 5 hours
• 2 kWh
• Total comes to 12.1 kWh: not too different from average (11kWh)
usage
• costs about Rs.121 per day
Energy Profile
• Looking at my bills August 2017 – August 2018, I saw that
my household (3 people) used:
• 3100 kWh of electricity in a year  8.6 kWh/day
• or 2870 W per person/day
• Which adds up to 86.1 kWh per month
• 26 % of Indian average
Average Indian
• 1075 kWh electricity per month per household
• about 330 kWh per person per month (11 kWh/day)
How much better can we do?
• Starting today, I challenged myself and all of you guys to
reduce our energy footprint
• Replace all bulbs with LED which have higher efficiency
• Be diligent about turning off unused lights
• bike/walk around neighborhood (and bus to work)
• Start switching to solar power and try to add more solar powered
electrical equipment.