In the Alwar manual's chart, how much of an oil mill's electricity is lighting, and is it worth fixing first?

In one chart in the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) Alwar manual, lighting is 5% of the electricity. Kolhu motors are 47% and expeller motors 48%. Its lighting steps save 94,185 kilowatt hours (kWh) a year, about a tenth of that 5%. The halogen and roof sheet rows repay fastest; the other lighting rows take 12 to 27 months.

What the manual's chart shows

• A pie chart on page 28 splits the electricity three ways: kolhu motors 47%, expeller motor 48%, lighting 5%. The chart's label reads "Lightig", a typing slip.
• The text beside it says the highest energy users are the kolhus and the double pass expellers. A kolhu is the first press the seed goes through; the expeller then presses the cake that comes out of it.
• The manual does not say if the chart is one mill or the whole cluster. Our reading is that it is a typical profile.

What 5% is in kilowatt hours

A kilowatt hour (kWh) is the unit on your electricity bill, the way a litre is the unit for diesel. The manual gives about 186 lakh kWh a year for the Alwar and Sawai Madhopur mills together. A lakh is 100,000, so that is 18,600,000 kWh.

Five per cent of 18,600,000 is 930,000 kWh. That is lighting, if the chart holds for the cluster.

What the lighting steps in the manual save

• T5 tubes (slim tube lights) for 40 watt tubes: 42,660 kWh, rupees (Rs) 1.9 lakh a year, cost Rs 3.0 lakh.
• Translucent roof sheets in place of daytime lamps: 16,250 kWh, Rs 0.8 lakh, cost Rs 0.6 lakh.
• 250 watt high pressure lamps to 4 tubes of 24 watts: 10,410 kWh, Rs 0.5 lakh, cost Rs 0.8 lakh.
• 150 watt high pressure lamps to 4 tubes of 14 watts: 15,625 kWh, Rs 0.75 lakh, cost Rs 1.7 lakh.
• 500 watt halogen lamps to an 85 watt compact fluorescent lamp: 6,100 kWh, Rs 0.29 lakh, cost Rs 0.032 lakh.
• 100 watt bulbs to an 11 watt compact fluorescent lamp: 3,140 kWh, Rs 0.151 lakh, cost Rs 0.018 lakh. This row is in the manual's text but not in its summary table.
• Lighting at 210 volts with a stabiliser saves Rs 0.21 lakh at a cost of Rs 0.21 lakh. The manual prints no kWh for it. Its sum prints 1.5 kW x 3,500 hours at Rs 4.8, which is Rs 0.25 lakh (5,250 kWh), against the Rs 0.21 lakh in the table.

What that adds up to

• The six rows that print kWh add to 94,185 kWh. They swap the stabiliser for the 100 watt bulb row, so they are not the same six as in the summary table. That is 10.1% of the 930,000 kWh in lighting's 5%.
• The six lighting rows in the summary table (T5, sheets, stabiliser, two high pressure lamps, halogens) save Rs 4.45 lakh for Rs 6.342 lakh. Payback is 6.342 / 4.45 x 12 = 17.1 months.
• Against the whole table, that is 4.65% of the Rs 95.76 lakh saved and 3.3% of the Rs 189.8 lakh of investment required. The motors row alone is Rs 69.65 lakh, 72.7% of the saving, for Rs 172 lakh.

What to do first, our reading

Motors are where the kWh are, so a motor swap moves your number most. Lighting rows cost less in rupees. In the manual's table the halogen swap repays in about 2 months and the roof sheets in about 9. The other lighting rows take 12 to 27 months, and the 150 watt row at 27 months is almost as slow as the motors at 30. Eco ventilators (3 months) and the power factor controller (11 months) repay faster than most lights. If a motor swap is out of reach this year, the halogen and roof sheet rows are the lighting steps to look at first. Do both in the order your own bill and your own meter readings support.

An example mill that matches the chart

• Example mill: 200,000 kWh a year (an example figure, not from the manual)
• Lighting 5%: 10,000 kWh. Motors 95%: 190,000 kWh
• Carbon dioxide (CO2) at 0.675 kg a kWh, the financial year 2025-26 grid factor: lighting 10,000 x 0.675 = 6,750 kg, motors 190,000 x 0.675 = 128,250 kg
• Motor steps, using the manual's 14 lakh of 186 lakh kWh, which is 7.5% of all electricity: 200,000 x 7.5% = 15,000 kWh = 10,125 kg
• Lighting steps, using the manual's 94,185 of 930,000 kWh, which is 10.1% of lighting: 10,000 x 10.1% = 1,010 kWh = 682 kg

The 5% share is the manual's chart; the 200,000 kWh is an example. The 7.5% and 10.1% are our ratios from the manual's cluster totals, so a real mill will differ.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the kWh for each bill you upload is on file by month. The bill shows the whole mill's electricity, not one motor's; for that you need a meter on each line or a few days of readings.

• Alwar oil mill manual totals checked
• T5 tubes for 40 watt tubes in Alwar
• Translucent roof sheets in an oil mill
• Alwar mills: electricity per quintal
• Get your first carbon number

Sources: Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Manual on energy conservation measures in oil mills, Alwar cluster (SAMEEEKSHA), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, version 22.0 (grid factor 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh, FY 2025-26)

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Chart share, kWh, rupees and costs are from the BEE Alwar manual at its date and tariff (Rs 4.8 a kWh). The chart's scope (one mill or the cluster) is not stated, so the 930,000 kWh is our reading. Check today's tariff and quotes before relying on any payback.