here is a little something i whipped up to show you how much money you could save switching to LEDs if anyone was curious
Feel free to correct me if i am wrong.
For me this is how i figured it out, comparing to 3 400w MHs, tank is 300g. Lights on 11hrs a day, 365 days a year (not counting leap years to keep it simple). I done some digging through my electric bills and on avg including tax and all that junk, each Kw comes out to about 11 cents. I may have only needed 2 MH's but i based it off of 3 since my tank is 8' long.
This example is also only including the energy needed to power the MH bulbs, the LEDs consumption includes the power draw straight from the outlet.
MH
11*400*3=13200 (13.2kw/day)
13.2*.11=145.2 cents per day($1.452)
145.2*7 days= $10.164 per week
10.164*52=
$528.53 per year
LED
The system i have uses less than 100w but we will use 100 to keep it simple and i have 4 of them
11hrs*100w*4units=4400 (4.4Kw per day)
4.4*.11= $0.484 cents per day
.484*7=$3.388 per week
3.388*52=
$176.18 per year
a savings of (528-176=
$352) in electricity
bulb replacement costs:
$60 roughly not including tax or shipping??? needs replaced every 9mo from what i have read.
Heres where things to me get a little hairy, i have read that the Cree bulbs are "supposed" to last 100k hrs, but since 50k seems to be a standard for most, i compared them to 50k hrs, not essentially years at first.
LEDs at
11*365=4015hrs/year
a MH gets replaced every 3011.25hrs
50,000/3011.25= 16.6(17 bulb replacements * 3 = 51)
54* 60=
$3240 in bulb replacements every 50k hrs
So the total costs (only including bulb replacements and electricity)
Lights will be on for a total of 4004hrs a year, thats 12.5years
MH
12.5* 528.53 =
$6606.63 + 3240 =
$9846.63LED
12.5*176.18=
$2202.25LED savings of
$7644.38just to show you how bright they are at 100w each