How much power does an improved paddy cleaner save in a small rice mill?

In BEE's Ganjam report, a new 1 TPH paddy cleaner on a 0.75 kW motor replaces an old one drawing 2.2 kW, saving 4,959 kWh a year, about 3.3 t CO2. Cost Rs 0.55 lakh, saving Rs 0.21 lakh, payback about 2.6 years. In mills whose old cleaner draws less, the payback stretches to 5 or 6 years.

How much of the mill's bill the cleaner takes

The report's example mill processes 3,420 t a year at 1 tonne an hour, 12 hours a day for 285 days, using about 37 MWh, 11.56 kWh a tonne. Its old 3 HP paddy cleaner draws 2.2 kW: 7,524 kWh a year, about a fifth of the mill's power for one machine. About half the cluster's mills run cleaners this old.

Old against new

• Old: 3 HP motor drawing 2.2 kW, 7,524 kWh a year.
• New: 1 HP motor rated 0.75 kW, 1 TPH, self-cleaning screens that can be swapped by grain type: 0.75 x 3,420 h = 2,565 kWh a year.
• Saving: 4,959 kWh, Rs 0.21 lakh at Rs 4.20 a kWh.
• Cost: cleaner Rs 0.50 lakh after the supplier's discount, plus Rs 0.05 lakh for cabling, shaft and fitting: Rs 0.55 lakh. Six days to change over.

Your old cleaner decides the payback

• The example mill: 7,524 kWh a year now. Saving 4,959 kWh, payback about 2.6 years.
• A second audited mill: 5,280 kWh now. Saving 2,715 kWh, Rs 0.11 lakh, payback about 4.8 years.
• A third: 4,620 kWh now. Saving 2,055 kWh, Rs 0.09 lakh, payback about 6.4 years.
• Clamp a meter on your cleaner for one full shift before you order. The new machine also cleans better, which protects rubber rolls and bran oil, so weigh that too.

The example mill, one year

• 2.2 kW x 12 h x 285 days = 7,524 kWh
• New: 0.75 kW x 3,420 h = 2,565 kWh
• Saved: 4,959 kWh x 0.675 = 3.3 t CO2
• The report's 4 t uses an older grid factor of about 0.81

CO2 at CEA's FY 2025-26 grid factor of 0.675 kg per kWh. Paybacks at the report's Rs 4.20 a kWh.

What Senseible does here

Senseible's calculators turn kWh into CO2 on the current grid factor. For a rice mill on grid power alone, the monthly electricity bill is nearly the whole footprint, and Senseible reads those bills into records.

• Carbon calculators
• Ganjam rice mills: power records that pay
• Rice mill: common shaft to separate motors
• Rice mill voltage stabiliser

Sources: BEE, Detailed project report: new improved design paddy cleaner (1.0 TPH), Ganjam rice mill cluster (SAMEEEKSHA), CEA CO2 Baseline Database, version 22.0

Last reviewed 2026-11-01. Report figures are from a BEE SME programme project report; costs and paybacks are at the report year's prices. Check today's tariff and a current quote.