Can Wires Save Electricity Bill?

• September 16, 2020
• Gaurav J

You would have seen few advertisements wherein, few brands are claiming that, if you use their wires, you’ll have saving in the electricity bill? Are these advertisements true? By using cables of a particular brand, will you be able to save your electricity bill? If you want to know more on this topic, then this tutorial is for you.

Someone asked you this, because your are an Electrical Engineer, ‘if we use some particular wire, will we be able to save electricity?‘ If you know the answer your are good to go. But, if you don’t, it becomes little awkward.

After going through this tutorial, you’ll not have to face any such awkward situation because you’ll have answer ready with you.

Let’s consider two different houses. House A & House B.

House A : With Regular Wires

In house A, regular wires are installed. And house A has following appliances.

So, if you add all these items, you’ll get total power consumption of 400 watts. And electricity provider will charge House A for consumption of 400 watts.
If that is what you think then I am afraid, you are not correct. Because, we have not considered one parameter here. And that is, power loss in the wires used. Now, this power loss may be negligible but there will be some power loss for sure.

Let’s say total wire used is 100 meters. And resistance of wire per 100 meter is 0.3 ohms.

Now these values I am using for your understanding purpose only. In reality these numbers may be different.

If current is 10 A then, power loss in the wires would be 30 watts (I^2 x R). And now the total power consumption would be 430 watts. So, technically, electricity provider will charge house A for consumption of 430 watts.

House B : With Electricity Saving Wires

Now, let’s talk about House B. In House B, wires that can save electricity are used.

House B also has same appliances as House A. And of course, they are going to consume same amount of power, no matter what wires you use.

The total becomes 400 watts. So, where is the saving?

I hope you have guessed it correct. Wires that can save electricity, will have less resistance than the other wire. These wires will be made up of high end material or more pure material than the other wires. Also, the insulating material will be of very good quality.

So may be, let’s say, this electricity saving wire has resistance of 0.25 ohms per 100 meter. And hence, power loss in wires for house B would be 25 watts.

So, the total consumption of House B will be 425 watts. And because of which, electricity bill of House B will be less than house A who is technically consuming 430 watts. Really not sure, what difference that 5 watts will make. But, technically, power consumption of House B is less than House A.

Now, practically, you may not have noticeable saving, until you have 100s of kilo meters of wire running in your house.

Few brands also claim 25% savings in electricity bill. I really doubt that. It seems a good marketing strategy but, saving of 25% it is difficult to digest.