Guide to calculating your energy costs

With the recent increases in energy prices, it’s essential we start looking at ways in which we can reduce our electricity consumption to help save money on our energy bills!

Ways you can reduce your energy bills

1 - Understand your electricity usage

2 - Good insulation

3 - LED lights

4 - EC fans

5 - Block any draughts

6 - Check your radiators

The key step in reducing your energy bills is to really understand how your energy bill works. Your electricity bill is calculated using the amount of energy your household consumes, and your electricity tariff.

Understand your energy bill

When you have a better understanding of how much energy appliances are consuming, you can start working towards reducing consumption to drive your bills down.

It’s quite straightforward to work out how much energy something is consuming using an equation.

1 unit of electricity is referred to as a Kilowatt-hour, displayed as kWh on your energy bill.

You can calculate how much energy a component consumes by multiplying the power output of the component with the number of hours per day you will be running the component.

LUMii Black 600W HPS Running Cost

As an example, we’ll use a LUMii Black 600W HPS light.

If you are to run this for 18 hours you would use the following calculation:

600(w) x 18(hours) = 10800 watts

You must then divide the watts by 1000 to work out how many kilowatts the component is consuming over this period of time: 10800 / 1000 = 10.8 kWh

To calculate the running cost of the HPS light, we can then do another equation using our energy tariff.

For the example, we will use an average rate of £0.34/kWh.

10.8 kW * 0.34 = £3.67

From this calculation, we can estimate that the total running cost of one 600W HPS fixture, running at 18 hours per day will cost £3.67 per day.

To calculate the running cost of the same light, on a 12 hour light cycle, we simply amend the equation.

600 * 12 = 7200

7200 / 1000 = 7.2

7.2 * 0.34 = £2.44 / day

Maxibright Daylight LED

LUMii BLACK LED 720W 6 Bar Fixture

ROOT!T LED Grow Light

Switch to LED

Switching to LED lights is a great way to see an immediate drop in your electricity bill. Take the Photon 480 for example - this light has the same coverage as a 600W HPS but will only cost £2.94/day when used for 18 hours, and £1.96/day when using a 12 hour light schedule making them 20% more cost effective to run.

Upgrade your fans

EC fans are another great way to reduce your electricity consumption. EC (Electronically communicated) motors are able to consume up to 70% less energy when compared with an AC fan making them another great upgrade for your grow space.

Rhino EC Ultra Silent Fan

RAM Mixed-Flow Inline Fan with Lead

Phresh Fan HyperFan

Insulate your space

Spending some time to make sure your space is well insulated is another great way to help save money on your energy bills. If your space is filled with draughts, and is not well insulated, you will struggle to maintain consistent temperatures which can cause issues throughout the growth cycle.

Check your radiators

Making sure your radiators are performing at maximum efficiency is another great way to help reduce energy consumption. If your radiators are not heating through evenly, you can solve this by simply airing them. Once aired, they will perform significantly better, meaning you will not need to keep the heating on for as long to maintain your desired temperature.