The day came and went and we all felt like we did *something* and got off our collective armchairs. We collected some stats for our building and found that during the period when the lights were off, we were able to save about 29 units on the average overall for the building (just one wing, since we were tracking only one, we have 4 wing in all) - this is roughly equal to the load of about two full households. Thats pretty good savings.
We had about a 70/80% participation, a lot of our residents showed up for a power-free hour and did what we used to do as kids when the power went out - people mingled, the older folks knew exactly what to do - the kids were somewhat at a loss - since in Bombay power cuts are rare! :) It was a good experiment and fun at the same time.
We got press coverage as well
Times Of India - Batti Bandh
and a flip side article
DNA Coverage for Batti Bandh - Why it was bad idea
in which an IIT professor points out how this well meaning exercise could well have tripped the main power grids! Yikes! The knee jerk is to say - cmon, say it ain't so - but it makes sense when you read it - primary power grids are most likely programmed to generate the average expected load - so they'll do it no matter what - unless we can gradually drive down the average by driving down consumption on a daily basis!
If nothing else - Batti Bandh served to raise awareness amongst people and importantly kids - atleast you end up hearing kids telling their parents to switch off - thats probably the biggest outcome of this exercise! The organisers estimate that there was a 10/20% savings in electricity during the period - in my opinion the event was not publicised enough and the major electricity providers (Tata / Reliance / BSES) were not roped into the exercise - thats too bad. Well - atleast *someone* did *something*, WE all did something and thats one better than talking global warming while sipping our whiskeys in our air conditioned rooms!
Thanks for the support.
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