# How much of a printing press's electricity goes to UV curing?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/printing-press-uv-curing-electricity-share

Measure it: put a meter on the UV lamp supply for a week of normal jobs and compare with the press total. On presses that cure every unit with mercury lamps it is often a large share, and LED curing cuts it sharply.

## How to measure

1. Clamp or install a meter on the UV power supply.
2. Log kWh with press hours and impressions for a representative week.
3. Divide lamp kWh by total press kWh to get the share, and by impressions to get kWh per thousand.

## What to do with it

Lamp hours on idle, lamps left at full power between jobs, and ageing reflectors are common waste. A before and after reading is the evidence for a retrofit to LED.

## In your footprint

It is all Scope 2 electricity at 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh. The share tells you where a saving would come from.

## Illustrative week on one press

- Press total: 4,200 kWh; UV lamps: 1,900 kWh, a 45% share
- UV CO2: 1,900 x 0.710 = 1,349 kg

Figures are illustrative; your own meter readings decide the share.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads electricity bills (CEA grid factor 0.710 kg CO2 per kWh, CO2 Baseline Database version 21.0) and diesel, LPG and gas invoices (IPCC 2006 defaults) into a dated, fingerprinted Scope 1 and 2 record for each site. Intensity per unit uses the activity count you enter, and estimates are labelled as estimates.

- [Offset printing per tonne of print](https://senseible.earth/answers/offset-printing-carbon-footprint-per-tonne-of-print)
- [Flexo label printing per square metre](https://senseible.earth/answers/flexo-label-printing-carbon-per-square-metre)

Sources: [CEA CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-database/?lang=en), [GHG Protocol Corporate Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard)

Last reviewed 2026-10-21.