Surya Roshni, one of India’s oldest electrical brands, said it launched what could be India’s most power efficient full-size ceiling fan — the SS-32.
The fan belongs to the new breed of brushless or BLDC fans that use an electronic circuit to convert alternating current into direct current or DC, instead of a brush.
Surya’s new fan, for example, consumes only 32 watts. Most fans in the market consume between 60-85 watts.
At the slowest speed setting, the fan consumes just 4 watts of power.
These fans use permanent magnets that revolve around a central core of copper wires — also called an armature. In traditional fans, the revolving part is also made of copper and achieves magnetic capability when current flows through it.
Because BLDC fans use permanent magnets on the rotating part, they consume about half the power than the traditional fans do.
Despite consuming only 32 watts, the fan has air delivery that is comparable to traditional models.
It delivers 220 cubic meter of air per minute (CMM), compared to a model like Havells Velocity, which delivers 230 CMM of air, but consumes 75 watts of power.
The SS-32 has a rotating speed of 360 rounds per minute and a leaf-size of 1200 mm, both of which are similar to traditional models.
Another advantage of BLDC fans is that they use electronic circuits or SMPS to convert alternating current to direct current.
This enables manufacturers to include additional options such as remote controls at very low incremental costs. In fact, most of the BLDC fans comes with remote controls, including the new model from Surya.
On the downside, the permanent magnets inside such ceiling fans — which are key to reducing the power consumption of the device — are costly.
Against Rs 2,200 for a regular fan, BLDC models cost between Rs 3,200 to 3,500. Surya did not reveal the price of its model.
The company recently supplied around 500,000 fans under a scheme by the government of India to introduce more energy efficient electrical appliances in India.
The government has been successful in reducing the power consumed by lighting applications by the introduction of LED devices. Unlike fluorescent lamps, which consume about 15 watts for a 750 lumen output, LED lamps consume only about 7.5 watts.
Similarly, a new type of air conditioners, called inverter ACs, have been introduced in the last 2-3 years that help consumers reduce power consumption by as much as 50% compared to traditional ACs.
However, even as the power consumed by most lamps and ACs have gone down sharply over the last few years, the basic technology and efficiency of fans have remained the same.
BLDC could change that in coming years as the fans help consumers save money. For example, replacing a traditional 75-watt fan with a 32-watt fan helps save around 20 units of electricity per month, assuming that the fan works for 15 hours per day.
At Rs 6 per unit, this results in a saving of Rs 120 per month in electricity bills. Over a life-period of 10 years, the fan would save the owner a whopping Rs 14,400 even if electricity charges do not rise in the future.