How Households Consume Energy

The micro-level impact of improved access to electricity and LPG needs to be understood to take the right policy steps

- Shweta Kulkarni & Aditya Chunekar

India is pushing for adoption of clean and efficient energy sources and end-use technologies at the household level. The Saubhagya scheme has extended electricity connections to 26 million homes and Ujjwala has provided 75 million LPG connections. Significant efforts are also being made to increase awareness and adoption of LED bulbs, energy efficient appliances, electric vehicles, and rooftop solar.

These efforts along with increase in incomes, urbanisation, and rapid advances in technology are expected to change the household energy consumption patterns substantially. It is crucial to study these emerging patterns to chart policies aimed at influencing demand as well as planning of resources required to meet the demand.

However, there is very little information on how people use energy in their homes in India. A detailed residential energy consumption survey of 3,000 semi-urban and rural households of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Maharashtra (MH) by Prayas (Energy Group) gives some insights that can potentially inform policy decisions. We briefly describe three key insights.

Duration of electricity supply is the most important factor to allow meaningful use of appliances. Households reported about 15 hours of average daily supply in UP and 22 in MH. Further, about 47 per cent of surveyed households in UP and 6 per cent in MH reported damage to appliances due to poor power supply quality. Issues with quality of electricity supply should be addressed in both States, more so in UP.