Karnataka is going through acute power crisis during this festival season. The reason ? Not enough supply of coal and maintenance of many power stations. Bangalore and whole Karnataka is experiencing scheduled and unscheduled power cuts. Today morning was no different. Around 6 O’clock, power cut started. However, power was restored within 1 hour. To make sure I use that period for heating water, I started geyser. Generally I keep geyser on for only 10-15 minutes. Today however, I completely forgot that I had switched it on. It took no less than 45 minutes before I realized it. The result ? Unnecessary power wastage and water so hot that I could have used it for 4-5 people. I was really ashamed of myself that during such a power crisis, I wasted so much of it. With this, I also started thinking that many people must have faced similar problem in morning. We all are very busy in morning, running here and there to complete our regular tasks. It is very natural to forget about switching the geyser off. What is the solution ??
Actually the solution is quite simple. At least technically. Add a timer in geyser. One can use timer keypad and set the timer just like we set alarm clock. Once geyser is started, it will run till timer expires and then stops boiling water. One can come any time after that to switch off the geyser. Once timer is set, we don’t need to set it every day. Whenever we want to change the timer, we can use timer keypad to set it. The timer keypad and LED can be placed right on the geyser or at a suitable height such that it is easy to set the timer.
There are few geyser models which stops boiling water automatically once a certain temperature is attained. However, that temperate is set during manufacturing time and can not be changed or reconfigured. Also, one might want to boil water specific to individual need. Giving users the power to save power is really interesting. What do you say ?
Recently, I was going to my home during noon time. And I noticed that street lights were still on !! The person responsible for switching them off might have forgot or might be on leave. Whatever be the reason. And I was wondering. Why can’t we add simple timer or light sensor in existing street lights ? Or altogether replace old lights with new models having solar panel with timer or light sensor. Timer can simply switch off lights at say 6 in morning and switch them on at 6:15 in evening. Similarly, light sensor can check light intensity and accordingly switch on/off the lights. Only one time investment but it can save lot of power and manual inspection (that means that person can do some other work !!). India is over-reliant on manual procedures. In this world of new technologies, we must use them effectively to save our scarce power resources.
In the use case that you mentioned, this might be a counter-productive idea. Once you’ve forgotten that you’ve switched on the geyser, and after certain time, it’s off then water will start cooling down and then you’ll have to heat it again when you actually need it.
As you mentioned, most of the geysers have thermostats, which stop using electricity after the water is heated, so no actual electricity is wasted even though it was on the whole time.
Comment by Nishit — October 18, 2011 @ 1:52 PM |
@ Nishit : Now a days geysers are coming with such good insulators that one can actually use that hot water in evening also. I have observed that with my geyser. So, checking/bathing after 15-30 minutes will definitely not make water cold.
Regarding thermostats, it is more of security function than power saving function. If one keeps geyser on for hours, it will make lot of steam out of water and eventually blast the geyser. To make sure this does not happen, if water temperature reaches certain level, it stops heating.
However, every individual has different requirements. For someone wanting lukewarm water, this level gives more than required hot water. With timer option, we can choose the options according to our liking. Also, time is more intuitive than setting temperature as generally we use time to switch off the geyser.
Comment by Uday Trivedi — October 18, 2011 @ 6:22 PM |
1. There are electric geysers available in the market. I had seen the tv-ad about a year ago. Having a timer is a good option.
Connectivity with your smart phone with AllShare to set up switch-on time, required temperature and then shutdown completely ?
2. For the street lamp problem, most of us would have done mini projects with a simple diode circuit. But, not serious enough to implement the same in practical.
http://www.eleccircuit.com/dusk-to-dawn-switch-by-ir-diode/
Comment by Pavan — October 18, 2011 @ 5:06 PM |
To save power is really beneficial. We should choose devices that are energy efficient to save more power.
Comment by Halogen Heaters — October 22, 2011 @ 11:58 AM |
Uday, good thoughts in right direction. But you know how things work here in India. Lots of great ideas but lack of will/expertise/time/funds to implement them.
But we should keep discussing this ideas in the right forum hoping for the best.
Comment by Gaurav Dhamija — November 9, 2011 @ 7:33 PM |