Expense in running led lights

[chris669]

For example 2x 165w light fixture,the electricity cost would be quite high??
Or do all the watts not always get used at 100%
Im thinking that would be like running your tv for 10 hrs a day

 

[Joeganja]

I think it's only 165w when all the LEDs are getting used to full power.

 

[TheEngineer]

You likely won't be running 165w out of each fixture constantly. That said, LEDs are still the most energy efficient lighting source for our hobby at this point.

 

[Downbeach]

For my system, I've used MH/PC's 3 x 250W MH/ 4 x 96W PC @ ~1300 W including mag balasts, T-12 4 x 160W @ 640W, T-5 6 x 80W @ 480W and finally 3 x 120W LED's @ 360W. Some LED marketers will rate their fixtures based on the maximum operating wattage of the LED's, so if the LED has a rating of 3W, and there are 50 LED's in the fixture they will rate it at 150W, but in reality they are only running at 2W at full power, and only drawing a total of 100W.

 

[redfishbluefish]

The one thing I don't understand about these fixtures labeled as 165 watts is that at full power they are only using 110 to 120 watts. They are 3 watt LED's running at full power at about 2 - 2.1 watts each. They come up with this 165 by multiplying 55 LEDs by 3 watts. Crazy.

 

[Harold Green]

And to make it even more confusing wattage doesn't have a direct relationship to lumen output.

 

[Justiful]

http://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.htm

This should answer your question. You can go to your electric company website to find out your exact cost of electricity. Also if you get a 24hour cycle controler, and why wouldn't you spending that much on 165 watt LED lights, it will likely only be max power 6 hours a day, and minimal power during the moon cycle.

If you REALLY want to know how much juice your system is using you can use
http://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Elec...=1442061644&sr=1-1&keywords=plug+load+monitor

Now if you want to know if those 165watt power LED's are worth it you can use a
http://www.specmeters.com/lightmeters/quantum-meters/
There are also cheaper versions out there. Might want to research a bit first.

 

[Harold Green]

My maths a little rusty but lets try. 165w fixture pulling say 100watts running(more likely less since most of us run them at around 50%). Ten hours a day(over exaggerating number of hours). That's one kilowatt per day. Cost of electricity in my area ranges from around 7cents to 10cents per kilowatt. So cost to run would be about 8cents per day. Rough figure about $25 per year per fixture. To me that means the cost of operation will be less than the cost of replacing mh or fluorescent lamps each year. With the cost of most of the pumps we all have running continuously it's nice to be able to save somewhere.