Most folks buying electronic appliances in India would know about the energy savings guide sticker which is placed on the appliances. It’s a 5-star rating, with 5 being considered the most energy-efficient one. These ratings are standardised in India by BEE(Bureau of Energy Efficiency) under the Ministry of Power. When you dig deep into the standards for each major appliance out there, you will find that there is a fixed set of rules for testing these appliances. The sticker actually shows different things for different devices. For example, for a TV, it would be in terms of the number of “Annual Energy Consumption” which is defined by the power consumption in kWh if you were running the TV on for 6hrs/day and it’s on standby for 12hrs a day (Rest of the time considered OFF). Similarly, for a fridge, it would be annual consumption with it being ON always.
Whereas for a water heater, it’s measured in terms of standing power loss. It means how many units in kWh is consumed by your heater if you left it ON for a full day without you letting water out from the pipe(Meaning in steady-state condition). For example, if after the test, the energy consumption is below 0.32kWh for 24hrs(For a 6L Geyser), you will get 5stars. Values are pretty low, so don’t panic that your electric bill is going to skyrocket if you accidentally forgot to turn off a geyser in your bathroom. 🙂
For readers who are interested to read up on this, do check out the beestarlabel website. It contains a massive database of all registered appliances in India with their rating points and it contains tons of info on the tests that are performed and what standards are applicable. It’s one of the better-maintained govt websites out there. You can potentially learn a lot, so that next time you see one of those labels when you go shopping, you would know exactly what to make out of it.
