Voice of the Customer - Bangalore

Voice of the Customer - Bangalore

We surveyed 15 customers across all commercial building segments in the period September to November 2012. Here is what they have to say:
Power shortage is not a serious issue with customers in Bangalore. Customers do not depend too much on DG sets.

Units consumed from Grid and DG set

DG/Grid usage in Bangalore

Source: New Ventures India Surveys. Numbering is in continuation from the “Customers in Chennai and Madurai” section. The 15 data sets for Bangalore include offices, educational institutes, hotels and hospitals. Surveys conducted September to November 2012
Running the DG set is expensive but the small number of hours a DG set is run pushes up weighted average costs marginally.
Outage during operating hours when DG sets have to be used is considered – referred to as outage hours.

Unit power cost from DG set vs. Grid

Cost of electricity from DG vs. Grid in Bangalore (Rs/kWh)

Source: New Ventures India Surveys. Numbering is in continuation from the “Customers in Chennai and Madurai” section. The 15 data sets for Bangalore include offices, educational institutes, hotels and hospitals. Surveys conducted September to November 2012

Weighted average cost of electricity

Unit cost of electricity (DG+Grid) in Bangalore (Rs/kWh)

Source: New Ventures India Surveys. Numbering is in continuation from the “Customers in Chennai and Madurai” section. The 15 data sets for Bangalore include offices, educational institutes, hotels and hospitals. Surveys conducted September to November 2012
Customers are not that concerned about their power prices and therefore have not been investing in Renewable Energy or Energy Efficiency technologies.

Technology	Penetration amongst surveyed organizations
LED	None of the 15 places we interviewed had 100% replacement. 5 had partially replaced their lights with LEDs and 10 have not yet done anything
Solar water heater	4 of the 9 places which had hot water requirements used solar water heaters. Remaining 6 places did not have hot water requirements

Source: New Ventures India Surveys. Numbering is in continuation from the “Customers in Chennai and Madurai” section. The 15 data sets for Bangalore include offices, educational institutes, hotels and hospitals. Surveys conducted September to November 2012

Customers have perception issues

We asked customers, who are not using specific technologies, and here are the top reasons for their hesitation:

Renewable Energy /Energy Efficiency	Top reasons why customers have not used these technologies in Bangalore
LED lights	LEDs cannot be used in areas where aesthetics or lux levels are important The technology is still evolving and has not stabilised. The products available in India are not reliable
Solar Water Heaters	There is not enough space for a solar installation on the roof top The sky is often overcast solar water heaters do not perform reliably
Solar PV	The technology is too costly, unreliable and does not have strong vendors. The technology will not work in the overcast skies of Bangalore There is not enough space for a solar installation on the roof top

More worrying, Customers have usage issues

We asked customers, who are using specific technologies, and here are the top usage issues they have experienced:

Renewable Energy /Energy Efficiency	Top issues that customers have faced in Bangalore
LED Lighting	It takes a long time to install (often over a month involving repeated assessments) It does not provide the same "warm lights" and cannot provide lux levels of 300 and above There are cases of multiple images There are high failure rates for certain types of LED products The right type of fixtures is not available for retrofits
Solar Water Heater	Solar water heaters were not able to meet the morning peak hot water requirement The temperature of the water in tap outlets varies widely (temperature increases if a tap has not been utilised for some time) Vendors do not provide turnkey and guaranteed solutions (integrating pumping and plumbing)

At the same time customers have started experiencing real benefits

We asked customers, who are using specific technologies, and here is what they had to say:

Renewable Energy /Energy Efficiency	Top benefits customers are deriving in Bangalore
LED Lighting	Helps in reducing the operating cost
Solar Water Heater	Performance is satisfactory and as per expectations