Impact of socio-economic and architectural factors on peak electricity demand: A case study of South Bombay

A representative sample of South Bombay domestic consumers was surveyed to obtain data regarding their electricity consumption, lighting load patterns, and several social and architectural attributes. We examine the relation between electricity consumption and architectural and social attributes of domestic consumers in South Bombay with a view of identifying strategies to reduce electricity consumption in the household sector and contributions of domestic lighting to peak electricity demand. It is found that the daylight factor is the single most significant attribute among the parameters studied, which contributes to savings in household electricity consumption. In South Bombay, domestic electricity consumption is found to vary approximately as the square root of the daylight factor, within the range of daylight factors studied, when other parameters are held constant. Another significant finding relates to differences in the pattern of use of fluorescent lamps by households in different income categories. Households in the poorest income categories are found to use their installed fluorescent lamps about four times more intensively than households in the highest income category. We conclude that a subsidy to introduce fluorescent lamps to domestic consumers in India is likely to have a larger impact on peak electricity demand if it is aimed at the lowest income sections of electrified households.