Power Consumption / Light Cost

Yo babygro I added your Ohms law breakdown to the original post check it out.

I did some math for a 400 watt Hps bulb, like i didnt include the ballast. I came up with a total of 144 Kw/month... does that sound right??

Ya a 400W @ 10 hours a day is 144Kwh a month.

I dont get an electric bill every month as I have a key and can see how much I am useing at any time of the day or night

Using electricity was a real worry for me as i didnt have a job when I first started out and didnt know how much a 400wer and 2 fans was going to use and from alot of reading it sounded like a lot

But I can now say that it wont even use a £10er a week and that is with the pc on 24/7....lights and fans on 18/6 and all the other household appliances that get used in the course of a week

It works out at about just over £1.50ish a day with every thing included and will be even less when I switch to 12/12

Can someone help me to answer some questions about how the spreadsheet may relate to my specific situation? I spent a good deal of time with this tool, it's incredibly useful but I still ended up with a few unknowns for my specific situation...

I know there are some very knowledgeable and vastly more experienced folks than me on this board, could you please take a moment to give me your opinion whether I am being totally reckless?!?

I live in a college town in the US, small town, just the kind of place the police keep their eyes open for chances to pop college kids for growing and because of my proximity to the university I feel I need to be extra careful. To complicate matters more, the city government is also the power and water utility provider here, so it's no stretch of the imagination to feel that the power company and the police force keep tabs on anything suspicious happening on the 'grid'. I live in a small townhouse with spacious basement, excellent place for a setup and I have a landlord I haven't seen in 8 months.

After reading through all of the rate schedules on the city .gov page, and pulling all of my utility bills for the last year, it appears that my BASELINE is about 1200kwh / month.

My light setup will be 8 HO Fl's at 54 watts/ea (t: 648w) and two 600w HPS (t: 1200w) for a total of 1848w, and with a combined average daily on-time of 16hrs (20hrs for the T-5s and 12hrs for the HPS's) - adds up to 887kwh, round it up to 900 after the fans and stuff are in.

That’s a large increase: from 1200 to 2100 kwh / month. But my girlfriend moved out recently, and the utilities were in her name, so I recently changed service into my name, so this may be an ok time to ramp up an increase; as far as the power co is concerned, one resident moved out and a different resident moved in. I also have a LOT of computer equipment (5 PCs with 400w-550w power supplies) that all run all the time, I haven’t measured the PCs power usage but I'm sure I could reduce my 'Baseline' by half if I turn stuff off...

How would one know exactly WHAT constitutes a red flag for the power company?

Also, I won’t be using the HPS lights for at least a month, until the first tomatoes are ready to bear fruit.

If that's true, I would really only be increasing my overall usage from 1200 to 1650kwh. Even that is a noticeable increase, right?

There is another thing I don’t know: the spreadsheet shows that there is an additional charge for 100-130%, 131-200$, etc. Is that % of average baseline over the last year? I can’t find anything about that on the city's website.

And another thing, there are 2 residential programs: "Energy Rate" and "Demand Rate" - the city's website says if you are using more than 1400kwh you should use the Demand Rate program, the base charge is higher but there isn’t as much of a charge for higher demand - but I live in an apartment; I would hate to raise a red flag by asking for Demand Rate for my 2 bedroom apartment. Right? Besides asking my neighbors for a look at their power bills, is there any way I can know what their usage is?

So those are my quandaries. Any input would be great - sometimes I live in fantasy land in my head and need someone to say 'Dude, WTF are you doing!?!?' - Or 'You better flee for the border, bro'

Thanks in advance for helping me sort some of this out!

I attached the fee schedule from the city's website, BTW

yoo i was wondering if some people can help me out with growing tips with my plant growing indoor/how to start

First let me say that even 1200Kwh a month is ALOT of power. Here where I live a 3 bedroom house only gets 350Kwh.

Originally Posted by AetvsDominvs

My light setup will be 8 HO Fl's at 54 watts/ea (t: 648w) and two 600w HPS (t: 1200w) for a total of 1848w, and with a combined average daily on-time of 16hrs (20hrs for the T-5s and 12hrs for the HPS's) - adds up to 887kwh, round it up to 900 after the fans and stuff are in.

I got 259Kwh (T5s) and 432Kwh (HPS) totaling 691Kwh. Rounding up and down is done on the second page. DOWNLOAD THE FILE it has your setup input allready and isnt locked =)

Originally Posted by AetvsDominvs

That’s a large increase: from 1200 to 2100 kwh / month. But my girlfriend moved out recently, and the utilities were in her name, so I recently changed service into my name, so this may be an ok time to ramp up an increase; as far as the power co is concerned, one resident moved out and a different resident moved in. I also have a LOT of computer equipment (5 PCs with 400w-550w power supplies) that all run all the time, I haven’t measured the PCs power usage but I'm sure I could reduce my 'Baseline' by half if I turn stuff off...

Now your baseline isnt how much you use but how much you are alloted to use. Your power use should be easily under the 1200Kwh with as you said a little power conciousnes. Put 5w-10w CFLs in ALL fixtures you pay for, and turn on power saving mode on all the PCs you can.

Originally Posted by AetvsDominvs

How would one know exactly WHAT constitutes a red flag for the power company?

Also, I won’t be using the HPS lights for at least a month, until the first tomatoes are ready to bear fruit.

If that's true, I would really only be increasing my overall usage from 1200 to 1650kwh. Even that is a noticeable increase, right?

There is another thing I don’t know: the spreadsheet shows that there is an additional charge for 100-130%, 131-200$, etc. Is that % of average baseline over the last year? I can’t find anything about that on the city's website.

Looking at your rate chart you dont have an additonal charge for overages; probably cause you are alloted so much allready. I also added another section so you may want to re download it.

Originally Posted by AetvsDominvs

And another thing, there are 2 residential programs: "Energy Rate" and "Demand Rate" - the city's website says if you are using more than 1400kwh you should use the Demand Rate program, the base charge is higher but there isn’t as much of a charge for higher demand - but I live in an apartment; I would hate to raise a red flag by asking for Demand Rate for my 2 bedroom apartment. Right? Besides asking my neighbors for a look at their power bills, is there any way I can know what their usage is?

Asking about power use with your neibors is kinda a bad idea. But if you just moved in you may be able to get away with it saying "You are concerned about running all your PCs all the time and how much they pay a month"; but not how much Kwh they use its to in depth of a question and may raise an eyebrow to you.

Well hope that helps
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