Do led grow lights use a lot of electricity
Do grow lights use a lot of electricity?
Grow lights don’t use as much electricity as you may think. If you have a smaller grow, you don’t need to set aside hundreds of dollars each month to run your grow lights. Due to increasing competition amongst grow light manufacturers, innovation is pushing efficiency further and further. These days, indoor growing is not as expensive as you'd think!
A light system will increase your electricity cost -- the exact amount depends on the size of the system and the number of hours operated. However, since most grow lights are so energy efficient, you are getting huge amounts of light (and growing power) for your money! Make sure your grow room's power circuit can handle the power draw. For safety reason, do not exceed 75% of the rated ability of the fuse/breaker (for example: use no more than 15 amps on a 20-amp circuit).
Do LED grow lights cost less to run?
LED grow lights may have the highest initial cost of all the lighting types, but they pay for themselves over time. These lights are the most efficient, and cost far less to run than MH/HPS grow light and CMH, while providing arguably the highest performance.
On top of this, LED’s generate less heat than other grow lights. This cuts HVAC costs, further lowering your energy bill.
Additional Advantages
LED lighting offers more benefits than simple savings in electricity. Although electrical costs are the easiest to calculate, there are other factors to consider.
REDUCED HEAT GENERATION: Switching to more efficient lighting technologies can mean a significant reduction in heat generation. This can translate into reduced cooling costs. If you will use your lights in an air-conditioned space, during hot months, then this is something worth consideration. On the other hand, what if you're running your lights in a cool room during winter months? That extra heat can actually reduce the amount of cycles that your furnace must run. Thus, the extra heat from your older lights is not really wasted energy.
IMPROVED OPERATIONAL TOLERANCE: In general, LEDs are a much better option for environments where they will be turned on and off frequently. In home and commercial environments, they can outperform fluorescents. LEDs do not require a warm up period to reach maximum brightness. Their lifespan is not diminished by short on / off cycles. They also work much better in colder environments. Do you have an unheated garage that never lights up properly in the Winter months? Replacing your linear fluorescent tubes with LEDs can yield much better light quality!
On a side note, some LEDs are being developed that are even water proof. This makes them excellent options in grow rooms or aquariums where there is always a danger of being splashed by water.
IMPROVED LIFESPAN: You can expect more than double the lifespan out of your LEDs versus fluorescent grow light. Most T5 bulbs will have a rated lifespan of 20,000 hours. In contrast, LEDs claim to offer 50,000+ hours of operation. These are only estimates, of course. Bulbs can fail sooner than expected. And that even applies to some LEDs that have fallen short of consumer expectations, often due to driver failure.
One more perspective on the whole lifespan issue deals with how quickly a light loses its intensity. Some bulbs may not have burned out but after enough hours of operation, their brightness will start to drop off significantly. LEDs offer a real advantage in this regard as they tend to hold their brightness for a much longer period than most other technologies. It's a broad range of factors that can really make things complicated. Thus, I personally don't try to quantify the exact lifespan savings. I prefer to focus on the reduced wattage consumption for any given coverage area.
Horticulture Lighting Group HLG 550 V2
LED grow lights are evolving at a fast pace.
What was best 2 years ago, is now replaced with a new LED technology.
And when talking about new LED technology, the Horticulture Lighting Group LED grow lights are as new as it gets. New technology in LEDs usually means stronger light for less electricity. Well, Horticulture Lighting Group LED grow lights have the highest lumen/watt and PPFD/watt ratio of all the LED grow lights on the list.
And this all has to do with diodes that are used in these white-light, quantum boards. Yes, HLG lights are all ‘white lights', and when growing plants, white light is preferred to your regular ‘blurple' light (blurple lights are predominantly blue and red spectrum lights, 90% of budget LED grow lights are blurple lights).
Before talking about the new generation LED diodes present in HLG lights, let's understand why white light is always preferred over ‘blurple' light.
White light has a high PAR-output in the full spectrum of PAR. White light more closely resembles the sun than blurple light and results in higher quality yield compared to blurple lights. Blurple lights have mostly high light-output in the blue and red wavelengths of PAR. And while blurple lights get the job done, plants grow better under a light that more closely resembles the sun and has a more balanced ratio of wavelengths that fall within the PAR -range (not just blue and red wavelengths, but green wavelengths as well for example).
Now you understand why white light is always preferred over blurple lights, let's understand what makes the LED diodes of Horticulture Lighting Group lights so good.
Currently (beginning 2019), the Samsung LM301B diodes are the most power-efficient LED diodes you can use to grow your plants, and these are exactly the diodes that you'll find in HLG grow lights.
Any LED grow light that makes use of Samsung LM301B diodes is going to be great for your yield and your electricity bill.
Samsung LM301B diodes:
Cover a wide spectrum of PAR, and;
Produce more intense light with fewer watts than other types of LED diodes like Epistar and even Cree.
With Samsung LM301B diodes, you won't only be able to easily create a grow setup with a maximized light intensity and therefore yield, but you'll also do it with the least amount of electricity used, making these LED diodes not only the best objectively in terms of light intensity, but also the best-value-for-money LED diodes that you can get.
The only technology that comes somewhat close in terms of PAR spectrum coverage, light intensity, and PAR/PPFD efficiency, is COB LED grow light (chip on board LED). And although COB technology will result in amazing quality yield as well, you can get the same result with fewer watts when using Samsung LM301B diodes.
Now:
When it comes to LED grow lights with Samsung LM301B diodes you don't have a whole lot of options. But if want your LED grow light to make use of Samsung LM301B diodes AND want great build quality, run cool and last longer than 1 year, the Horticulture Lighting Group lights are on top of that list.
Especially the cooling mechanism and proper spread of diodes are two extremely important factors that can make or break a LED grow light. The passive cooling mechanism of the Horticulture Lighting Group quantum boards is designed very effectively with heatsinks. With most of their models, you probably won't need any active cooling (although it always helps).
Combine this effective cooling with the most power-efficient white-light diodes and the right spread of diodes, and you have the perfect combination of grow light features to get an amazing yield while keeping the electricity bill down.
Grow lights don’t use as much electricity as you may think. If you have a smaller grow, you don’t need to set aside hundreds of dollars each month to run your grow lights. Due to increasing competition amongst grow light manufacturers, innovation is pushing efficiency further and further. These days, indoor growing is not as expensive as you'd think!
A light system will increase your electricity cost -- the exact amount depends on the size of the system and the number of hours operated. However, since most grow lights are so energy efficient, you are getting huge amounts of light (and growing power) for your money! Make sure your grow room's power circuit can handle the power draw. For safety reason, do not exceed 75% of the rated ability of the fuse/breaker (for example: use no more than 15 amps on a 20-amp circuit).
Do LED grow lights cost less to run?
LED grow lights may have the highest initial cost of all the lighting types, but they pay for themselves over time. These lights are the most efficient, and cost far less to run than MH/HPS grow light and CMH, while providing arguably the highest performance.
On top of this, LED’s generate less heat than other grow lights. This cuts HVAC costs, further lowering your energy bill.
Additional Advantages
LED lighting offers more benefits than simple savings in electricity. Although electrical costs are the easiest to calculate, there are other factors to consider.
REDUCED HEAT GENERATION: Switching to more efficient lighting technologies can mean a significant reduction in heat generation. This can translate into reduced cooling costs. If you will use your lights in an air-conditioned space, during hot months, then this is something worth consideration. On the other hand, what if you're running your lights in a cool room during winter months? That extra heat can actually reduce the amount of cycles that your furnace must run. Thus, the extra heat from your older lights is not really wasted energy.
IMPROVED OPERATIONAL TOLERANCE: In general, LEDs are a much better option for environments where they will be turned on and off frequently. In home and commercial environments, they can outperform fluorescents. LEDs do not require a warm up period to reach maximum brightness. Their lifespan is not diminished by short on / off cycles. They also work much better in colder environments. Do you have an unheated garage that never lights up properly in the Winter months? Replacing your linear fluorescent tubes with LEDs can yield much better light quality!
On a side note, some LEDs are being developed that are even water proof. This makes them excellent options in grow rooms or aquariums where there is always a danger of being splashed by water.
IMPROVED LIFESPAN: You can expect more than double the lifespan out of your LEDs versus fluorescent grow light. Most T5 bulbs will have a rated lifespan of 20,000 hours. In contrast, LEDs claim to offer 50,000+ hours of operation. These are only estimates, of course. Bulbs can fail sooner than expected. And that even applies to some LEDs that have fallen short of consumer expectations, often due to driver failure.
One more perspective on the whole lifespan issue deals with how quickly a light loses its intensity. Some bulbs may not have burned out but after enough hours of operation, their brightness will start to drop off significantly. LEDs offer a real advantage in this regard as they tend to hold their brightness for a much longer period than most other technologies. It's a broad range of factors that can really make things complicated. Thus, I personally don't try to quantify the exact lifespan savings. I prefer to focus on the reduced wattage consumption for any given coverage area.
Horticulture Lighting Group HLG 550 V2
LED grow lights are evolving at a fast pace.
What was best 2 years ago, is now replaced with a new LED technology.
And when talking about new LED technology, the Horticulture Lighting Group LED grow lights are as new as it gets. New technology in LEDs usually means stronger light for less electricity. Well, Horticulture Lighting Group LED grow lights have the highest lumen/watt and PPFD/watt ratio of all the LED grow lights on the list.
And this all has to do with diodes that are used in these white-light, quantum boards. Yes, HLG lights are all ‘white lights', and when growing plants, white light is preferred to your regular ‘blurple' light (blurple lights are predominantly blue and red spectrum lights, 90% of budget LED grow lights are blurple lights).
Before talking about the new generation LED diodes present in HLG lights, let's understand why white light is always preferred over ‘blurple' light.
White light has a high PAR-output in the full spectrum of PAR. White light more closely resembles the sun than blurple light and results in higher quality yield compared to blurple lights. Blurple lights have mostly high light-output in the blue and red wavelengths of PAR. And while blurple lights get the job done, plants grow better under a light that more closely resembles the sun and has a more balanced ratio of wavelengths that fall within the PAR -range (not just blue and red wavelengths, but green wavelengths as well for example).
Now you understand why white light is always preferred over blurple lights, let's understand what makes the LED diodes of Horticulture Lighting Group lights so good.
Currently (beginning 2019), the Samsung LM301B diodes are the most power-efficient LED diodes you can use to grow your plants, and these are exactly the diodes that you'll find in HLG grow lights.
Any LED grow light that makes use of Samsung LM301B diodes is going to be great for your yield and your electricity bill.
Samsung LM301B diodes:
Cover a wide spectrum of PAR, and;
Produce more intense light with fewer watts than other types of LED diodes like Epistar and even Cree.
With Samsung LM301B diodes, you won't only be able to easily create a grow setup with a maximized light intensity and therefore yield, but you'll also do it with the least amount of electricity used, making these LED diodes not only the best objectively in terms of light intensity, but also the best-value-for-money LED diodes that you can get.
The only technology that comes somewhat close in terms of PAR spectrum coverage, light intensity, and PAR/PPFD efficiency, is COB LED grow light (chip on board LED). And although COB technology will result in amazing quality yield as well, you can get the same result with fewer watts when using Samsung LM301B diodes.
Now:
When it comes to LED grow lights with Samsung LM301B diodes you don't have a whole lot of options. But if want your LED grow light to make use of Samsung LM301B diodes AND want great build quality, run cool and last longer than 1 year, the Horticulture Lighting Group lights are on top of that list.
Especially the cooling mechanism and proper spread of diodes are two extremely important factors that can make or break a LED grow light. The passive cooling mechanism of the Horticulture Lighting Group quantum boards is designed very effectively with heatsinks. With most of their models, you probably won't need any active cooling (although it always helps).
Combine this effective cooling with the most power-efficient white-light diodes and the right spread of diodes, and you have the perfect combination of grow light features to get an amazing yield while keeping the electricity bill down.
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