Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

We’re so used to certain things that it’s hard for us to fathom that one can, in fact, do without them. For me, the ceiling fan is one of these things.

I have to leave it on all the time, at maximum speed or a notch below. I mean, I don’t really have an option; I live in Mumbai. But I’m as dependent on the whirring of a fan as I’m on its draft. It’s a sound that helps me focus like none other.

Okay, but why am I going on about fans now?

Two reasons.

One, I had a friend visit me from Germany this weekend. And as we got chatting about housing in Düsseldorf, where she lives, she told me how her apartment doesn’t have an air conditioner or ceiling fan. “Not even a fan?” I asked, though I quickly realised this is hardly a surprising fact in colder climes, even if the rising temperatures have forced my friend to buy a pedestal fan.

Two, this discussion made me curious about how common ceiling fans are in India. I discovered that nine out of ten homes in India have one, and 40 million ceiling fans are sold annually, according to a February 2022 report by the New Delhi-based think-tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) and the US Bureau of Energy Resources (BER).

But more importantly, I also realised 2023 is going to be a huge year for ceiling fans. Bigger, in fact, than any in recent history.

Here’s why.

The humble ceiling fan is set to have a year like no other

India’s Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a government agency, rates electrical appliances between one and five stars based on how much energy they consume, with five being the most efficient.

Until 31 December, makers of nine products—including air conditioners, televisions, water heaters, and light-emitting diode (LED) lamps—had to mandatorily display the BEE’s star rating on the appliances. And there were 20 other products—including washing machines, microwave ovens, ceiling fans—where it was voluntary to do so.

But on 1 January 2023, ceiling fans moved from the second to the first category.

This is a big deal because ceiling fans account for 20% of India’s household energy consumption, and energy-efficient fans gobble up less than half as much power as conventional ones. While ceiling fans are next only to lights when it comes to how common they are, they fare the worst among appliances in terms of efficiency.

This means a market worth salivating over, especially for the top dogs. The three biggest—Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals, Havells, and Orient Electric—already control two-thirds of the industry, according to brokerage BOB Capital Markets.