Diwali – The economics of oil lamps

I was curious to know how much a family used to pay before the invention of electricity in the late 19th century.

A few data points which will help you connect the economics of light that we have been enjoying in the last 125 years.

1. One oil lamp consumes 15 ML of oil per hour.
2. One oil lamp lumen is around 10 lumens.
20 oil lamps for 4 hours per day for lighting a basic house requires 1.2 litre of oil every day or 36 litres of oil per month.
3. Cost of lamp oil per litre is around 180 rupees.
4. Thus the oil bill per month with just 200 lumens of light at home for a month will cost 6000 rupees.
5. Oil was not cheap in the olden days thus it used to form a substantial part of the family expenses.
6. The design of chandeliers was to increase the total lumen in a hall by aggregating 30-100 oil lamps.

Some more data:
1. A 20 watt LED has 1600 lumens equivalent to 160 oil lamps.
2. 160 oil lamps will consume 2.4 litres of oil per hour at 180 rupees which equals to 432 rupees per hour.
3. A 1000 watts per hour (1kwh) of electricity costs less than 10 rupees and 20 watts will cost 20 paisa.

Now you connect the dots and get your imagination to work. 

#economicsinnovation #data #electricity

October 12, 2021

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Author
Arun Jain