How Much Does A Good LED Grow Light Cost?

 One of the main advantages of growing with LED grow lights is their lower power usage. LED grow lights are very efficient at growing healthier indoor plants with increased potency while reducing the operating expense of an indoor grow at any scale. LED grow lights reduce the amount of electricity needed to grow plants and minimize the heat output, which in turn reduces the HVAC tonnage necessary to keep the grow room in the desired temperature range of 72–88 degrees F.

Do LED Grow Lights Use A Lot Of Electricity?

It depends on the light. A powerful LED grow light uses a lot of electricity. But it uses less than other forms of light that give you the same output.

They are more efficient than any other type of lighting, which basically means you pay less in power costs to get the same results. But you will still have a large monthly power bill. It just won’t be as large as it would be with HID grow lights or any other type.

How Much Electricity Do LED Grow Lights Use?

Calculating how much electricity an LED grow light uses is not that difficult. The hardest part is gathering all the information you need, in order to do the calculation. And that’s not actually hard either, because you only need two pieces of information, both of which are easy to get:

the actual wattage of the light
the number of hours the light is running per day
The actual power draw of light should be easy to find. Any reputable manufacturer will provide this information.

A 400W LED grow light needs to consume 400W. Because power companies use kilowatts (kW) per hour, we need to convert 400 watts to kw/h. To do this, simply divide the wattage by 1000. That gives us a power draw of 0.400 kw/h.

The number of hours the light is running is something you should know, but if you are trying to estimate how much it will cost you to run the light and are not yet sure how long it will run, use the following numbers.

If you are growing marijuana, your lights should generally run for 18 hours per day during vegging and 12 hours per day during flowering.

Many lights have a vegging mode that reduces the power consumption, so you may need to run two calculations: one for vegging and for flowering.

For the purpose of this calculation, we will calculate the power usage during flowering. This means the light is at full power (0.400kw/h) and it runs for 12 hours per day.

Now we can calculate the kilowatt-hours by multiplying those two numbers (0.400 kw/h x 12 hours). That gives us a power consumption of 4.800 kilowatt-hours.

Additional Cost Savings Of LED Grow Lights

Money saved
Lower power consumption is only one way that LED grow lights save money. They also save due to lower heat output and a longer lifespan.

A lower heat output means that you will not need to work as hard to keep your grow room cool. You will not need to buy as much ventilation equipment and you will not need as much electricity to power that equipment.

During the summer, HID lights generally require an air conditioning unit. With LED, you may not need it at all, but even if you do need A/C, you won’t need to run it as cold or as often. This results in considerable power savings.

In cold climates, you may need to heat your grow room if you are using horticultural LED lighting because you lose the heat from the HID lights. Their heat output is often enough to keep your plants warm in the winter.

More cost savings come courtesy of the lifespan. LED grow lights last much longer than HID lights, and even than fluorescent lights. This longer lifespan means you will not need to change bulbs every six months to one year.

Good HPS bulbs and MH bulbs are not cheap. The money you save from not having to constantly buy new bulbs really adds up.

Finally, LED plant lights not only save money, but they can also make you money, too. A big advantage of LED is that you can get the exact spectrum you want and the best manufacturers have tailored their lights with the perfect spectrum for plant growth.

This means that you are not paying the electricity costs for any light that plants ignore (and that thus goes to waste). It also means that your yields will improve, both in terms of size and in terms of quality. Higher quality weed fetches a higher price and obviously, a larger harvest will always result in more money in your pocket.

How Can You Reduce Running Cost

Now that you have all the insights regarding the cost of running a grow light is important to understand if there is any change to reduce your running costs. Here are my tips:

Use the (limited) available natural light: Do you really need 12 hours of light? If you live in an extremely north (or south) country with very few daylight hours, you can still leverage those 3–4 hours of full light in which you may simply turn off your grow light. Even 3 hours less a day implies a reduction of 25% in your grow light running costs. This can be set automatically with a simple timer.

Hence, change suppliers or simply reviewing your contract is nowadays a simple operation (does not require anyone coming to your home or install any wire) that sometimes can be done online or with a phone call. This move can save you lots of money as this will also affect the cost of running any other appliance (usually more expensive).

You can switch to a day/night tariff with a lower price at night time and give the 12 hours of light to your herbs during nighttime (the electricity price can be even half of the daytime). In the end, the growing cycle of the plant, as totally indoor, is defined by you, so it should not be an issue in which hours of the day.

Conclusion

Well, the grow light is not a social status medal, but an effective means of growing healthy plants. Therefore, you do not need to pay extra for it, as long as you follow the above methods, you will have a lot of gains.