Hello everyone! I'm starting my first grow, I already have the seeds germinating, but my concern is the price of running 3-4 30W CFL's. I've read on websites that the product cost per 100 hours is 4 cents, but I'm not sure exactly what this means. Is it 4 cents per hour, or 4 cents per 100 hours? The latter seems a bit too low. And if you've run a CFL grow, what was the fluctuation in your energy bill? Thanks for all the help guys! Also, sorry if this question has been answered before, I searched the forums but couldn't find anything.
with 120 watts you will not notice very big bill difference at all. Do you worry about your bill when you turn on your lights(probably 100 watt incandescents) in your bedroom?There's probably plenty appliances that suck up way more than 100 watts in your house air conditioners,computers, and my space heater takes up 1,500 watts not that I use it often.
How many plants are you planning to grow with 4 30w CFLs? You may want to look into more light. But to answer your question... Each of those lights consumes 30w per hour. On a 24/0 veg schedule that would be 720 watts per day or 21.6 kilowatts per month. On a 12/12 flower schedule that would be 360 watts per day or 10.8 kilowatts per month. Look on your electric bill, it may tell you what your kilowatt cost is. If not, it certainly will tell you what your total kilowatt usage for the month was, just divide the cost of the bill by the kilowatt usage to get a rough idea of your cost. Once you have your kilowatt cost just multiply it by the above monthly kilowatt consumption number for the light to get your monthly cost. That is for one bulb, multiply that by the number of bulbs to get your final cost per month, or a close approximation. My kilowatt cost is about 9.2 cents, so running four of your CFLs on 24/0 cycle would cost me about $7.95/month in electricity.