Chennai, Aug 25 - Indians are spending around Rs.30,000 crore every year to run their power back-up systems to escape frequent outages, according to a study by power genset maker Wartsila India.

The erratic power supply in the country has helped the power back-up equipment industry - inverters, batteries and small gensets - grow to the present size of around Rs.100,000 crore.

'The real cost of power that Indians pay is far higher than what they think. The diesel used to power gensets is subsidised. Further, the quality of power from those equipment is also poor,' M. Rajagopalan, vice-president (southern region) of Wartsila, told reporters while releasing the study here.