Horrible Power cuts!!!

Hi Guys,

Do you know which is the most romantic state in India?

(Answer at the end of this post)

It’s very hot here with the mercury constantly touching 40 degree Celsius. To make life difficult there is a regular 3 hour power cut from 9am to 12 pm and many irregular power cuts. Particularly there is a 5 minute power cut from 10.55 pm to 11 pm. I don’t know what this 5 minutes power cut will serve for TNEB, other than people’s curse for disturbing their sleep. Other than this once in two weeks or so, there will be a power cut from 9am to 6pm for 9 hours.

In the recent days, I read some articles about these power cuts and I analyzed the reasons for the power cut. The main reason said is that the production of electricity is very less, when compared to the demand. This may be a reason but there are more reasons. I’ll be writing my views below.

Wastage of Electricity

In the recent days, when I went out during night time, I noticed these bizarre things along the road side. There was an advertisement hoarding kept by a hospital. It advised motor cyclists to wear helmets.....


Through the hoarding I was able to see the tube lights that were kept to illuminate the advertisement. I started counting and was amazed to find 20 of them. Think, 20 lights of 35W glowing for the whole night. Next thing was a roadside fruit shop. It was not a very large shop and 1 light would have been enough for the whole place. But there were four 100W incandescent lamps, providing light for the whole road. And from where did he get electricity in the mid of a road. Just not these two things, there are lot of such advertisement hoardings and illegal electricity.

When will be the projects finished?

For the past few years, many power stations are under construction including the Kudankulam nuclear Reactor, which if finished will be the largest nuclear power generator in India. I have been reading that it would start production in a few months time for a few years and it’s not still finished. Today I read in newspaper that it would start production by this December. Let’s hope it does. Apart from this there are lot of power stations under construction and don’t know when they will be finished.

Renewable Energy

People suggest that we should go for renewable energy. The most common energy sources are water, wind and solar energy. Are they good solutions?

Hydropower

We are already generating hydropower to good extent. There are no more possibilities to generate hydropower. With the global warming and changing climate, the monsoon period has become unpredictable. So, generation of hydropower is also decreasing.

 

  Wind Energy

We exploit wind energy to some good extent. Tamil Nadu is one of the leading states in India in terms of wind power production. We have large number of windmills, but I think we can further increase them. The problem is that we will get good power only in the windswept months. Again climate change is affecting the wind power.

 Solar Energy

Over the last few years, this has been the most discussed power source. But in solar energy, we need to spend a lot to install a plant and we can’t expect very good power production. So we can’t use it for large scale power production, but we can use solar powered street lamps, water heaters which are very effective and have low maintenance costs.

 A Solar powered Street Lamp

In countries like Japan wave or tidal power is used. India has long seashore and we can try it. In Scotland, Geothermal energy (power will be generated from the heat of earth’s surface). These two sources are completely green energies.

Maintaining properly will be enough

Instead of concentrating too much on production, we can rely on maintenance. I read in a magazine that the power lines in our country are not of the same size. If we can change them uniformly, we can save 4% of power lost. Transformer maintenance is also so poor. A few days ago I saw servicemen changing lubricant nearby my home. My heart nearly stopped seeing that. The older oil was black in color and the odor was unbearable. I think it was put years back. The newer oil was less dense, yellowish and had no odor.

Self help is the best help

People are not much aware about power savings. Just stop someone and ask “What are energy stars?” No one will know. If you know, my warmest wishes to you. If you don’t know then here is the explanation.

Energy Star rating with 3 Stars

Energy stars are used in electronic appliances. There will be totally 5 stars and if an appliance has 5/5 stars, it will have high power savings. Higher the number of stars, higher the power saving. Though the appliance will be quite costly, the maintenance cost will be low. For example, consider two refrigerators of same capacity having 3 and 5 stars. The 1st one may cost Rs.8000 and the running cost in 5 years would be Rs.5000. The 2nd one will be Rs.10000 and running cost would be Rs.3000 in 5 years. The more you use the more profit you will get.

We should stop switching on lights in day time, switching on and forgetting to off when we get out of the room and stop using appliances like ACs which consume very high power unless needed. I like the recent advertisements of Voltas. Hope you guys have also seen. Follow that advertisement.

Answer to the question:

Hope you guessed it. It’s Tamil Nadu.

You know why?

Every night is a candle light dinner.

-Thanks to TNEB (a SMS I received)

Another funny SMS:

Powerful Kavidai:

Sorry, power cut akituchu. Power vandhadum solren.

Happy Reading…