# What does a new paddy cleaner save in a 1 tonne an hour rice mill compared with a 1.5 tonne an hour mill, and which motor power should the saving use?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/paddy-cleaner-swap-1-vs-1-5-tonnes-an-hour

A new paddy cleaner saves 4,959 kilowatt hours a year in a 1 tonne an hour mill and 6,259 in a 1.5 tonne an hour mill in the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) Ganjam reports. Payback is 2.6 and 2.9 years for each report's heaviest-drawing mill; lighter mills pay back more slowly.

## What a paddy cleaner is, in plain words

Paddy comes in with dust, straw and small stones. A paddy cleaner shakes and blows that out before milling, the way you would winnow grain on a tray. The reports compare an old cleaner with a new design that does the same job on a much smaller motor.

## The two mills side by side

- 1.0 tonne an hour (TPH): old cleaner on a 3 horsepower (hp) motor drawing 2.2 kilowatts (kW), 12 hours a day for 285 days, 7,524 kilowatt hours (kWh) a year. New cleaner 0.75 kW, 2,565 kWh. Saving 4,959 kWh. Cost 0.55 lakh rupees (Rs), where a lakh is 100,000, saving Rs 0.21 lakh a year, payback 2.62 years (31 months).
- 1.5 TPH: old cleaner on a 7.5 hp motor drawing 4.1 kW, 8 hours a day for 300 days, 9,840 kWh a year. New cleaner counted at 1.49 kW. Saving 2.61 kW, 6,259 kWh. Cost Rs 0.75 lakh, saving Rs 0.26 lakh a year, payback 2.88 years.
- Both cost power at Rs 4.20 a kWh.
- Power for each tonne of paddy: the old 1.0 TPH cleaner draws 2.2 kWh a tonne and the new one 0.75. The old 1.5 TPH cleaner draws 2.73 kWh a tonne and the new one 0.99.

## Which motor power should the saving use?

The 1.5 TPH report's specification says the new cleaner needs 1.1 kW and has a 2 hp motor. Its saving table uses 1.49 kW, which is the 2 hp rating, 2 x 0.746. The saving table is the more cautious choice, because it assumes the motor runs at full rating.

On the specification's 1.1 kW the saving would be 4.1 minus 1.1 = 3.0 kW over 2,400 hours, or 7,200 kWh, worth Rs 0.30 lakh a year, and the payback 0.75 / 0.30 = about 2.5 years. That is our own arithmetic. Which figure is right depends on the load your cleaner really draws, so ask the supplier for the clamp meter reading on a similar mill.

The 1.0 TPH report uses 0.75 kW, which is its 1 hp rating, and its specification also says 0.75 kW, so there is no gap there.

## Why the saving is large

In the 1.0 TPH report the old 3 hp motor, about 2.24 kW, draws 2.2 kW, its input power is equal to about 98% of the motor's rated output (the real shaft load is lower, as motor losses come off). In the 1.5 TPH report the old 7.5 hp motor, about 5.6 kW, draws 4.1 kW, about 73% on the same basis. So the old motors are not simply oversized and trimmed. The saving comes from the new design doing the cleaning on a far smaller motor, which makes this a machine swap, not a motor swap. That reading is ours, from the reports' printed motor ratings.

These paybacks are for the reports' heaviest-drawing mills. The other audited mills draw less, so payback runs longer: the 1.0 TPH report's second and third mills use 4,620 and 5,280 kWh a year against 7,524, and the 1.5 TPH report's use 9,840, 4,521 and 6,218. For the 1.0 TPH case the paybacks stretch to about 4.8 and 6.4 years. The 1.0 TPH text itself says the new cleaner uses around 34% less power, which does not match the 66% cut in the table (2.2 kW down to 0.75 kW). Another page on this site quotes 18 to 26 months for locally made cleaners, which is a different basis from these reports.

## The carbon dioxide line

- The reports show 4 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) a year for 1.0 TPH and 6 tonnes for 1.5 TPH.
- On Senseible's grid factor for financial year (FY) 2025-26, 0.675 kilograms per kWh, the same savings are 3.3 tonnes and 4.2 tonnes.

## Both mills, line by line

- 1.0 TPH: 2.2 kW x 12 hours x 285 days = 7,524 kWh. 0.75 kW x 3,420 hours = 2,565 kWh. Saving 4,959 kWh x Rs 4.20 = Rs 20,828, or Rs 0.21 lakh. 0.55 / 0.21 = 2.62 years
- 1.5 TPH: (4.1 minus 1.49) = 2.61 kW x 8 hours x 300 days = 6,264 kWh (the report prints 6,259). 6,259 x Rs 4.20 = Rs 26,288, or Rs 0.26 lakh. 0.75 / 0.26 = 2.88 years
- CO2 at 0.675: 4,959 x 0.675 = 3.3 tonnes; 6,259 x 0.675 = 4.2 tonnes

These are the reports' printed figures with simple arithmetic on top. The 1.1 kW reading and the input-versus-rating percentages are our own, from the reports' printed motor ratings. Costs are the reports' 2010 prices.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so the drop in units after a cleaner swap shows once the bills are uploaded. A separate meter on one machine is a custom service, on request. A clamp meter before and after works meanwhile.

- [Improved paddy cleaner in a small rice mill: the 1 TPH case](https://senseible.earth/answers/rice-mill-improved-paddy-cleaner-saving)
- [New paddy separator by size in Ganjam](https://senseible.earth/answers/ganjam-paddy-separator-three-sizes)
- [Ganjam rice mills: electricity saving](https://senseible.earth/answers/ganjam-rice-mills-electricity-saving)
- [Green loan readiness check](https://senseible.earth/green-loan-check)

Sources: [BEE and SAMEEEKSHA detailed project report: paddy cleaner 1.5 TPH, Ganjam rice mill cluster](https://sameeeksha.org/pdf/dpr/Ganjam_rice_mill_cluster/10_Paddy_cleaner_15ton_Ganjam_Rice_mill.pdf), [BEE and SAMEEEKSHA detailed project report: paddy cleaner 1.0 TPH, Ganjam rice mill cluster](https://sameeeksha.org/pdf/dpr/Ganjam_rice_mill_cluster/09_Paddy_cleaner_10ton_Ganjam_Rice_mill.pdf), [CEA CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, version 22.0 (FY 2025-26 grid factor)](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-view?mappingId=234&lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-11-07. Costs and paybacks are at the reports' 2010 prices. The 1.1 kW reading is our own arithmetic on the report's specification; confirm the new cleaner's real draw with a meter.