Post by serri588 on Dec 30, 2018 16:20:21 GMT -5
So I've been wondering how much electricity AGs really use. The wattage on the lights is listed, but the pumps and the screen use energy too. It's also a pain to calculate average energy usage if you want to know how much of your electric bill is the AGs. You can't just take the wattage times the number of hours per day because, again, the pumps and screens are using something too.
I broke my promise to myself that I wouldn't buy any unneeded electronics this year and picked up 3 of the Wemo Insight Smart Plugs: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DBXNYCS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I'll be moving them around the house to try different outlets, but the power usage of the AGs is what I really wanted to know. The remote on/off feature isn't all that useful for this, but the live energy usage readings and averages are. I'll have to wait a few days for averages, but I think I've got some numbers for the touchscreens and the pumps.
First one has one of my Farms plugged into it. It's reading around 128-129 watts. so for 2 pumps and 1 touchscreen control you are looking at around 8 watts. Unplugging the water sensors didn't change the wattage used, so their contribution doesn't seem to be very high.
Second is on the Bounty behind my kitchen sink. It's running at 49 watts. That's 4 for the single pump and touchscreen. A little high school algebra and it turns out that the pumps and sensors run about 4 watts and the screen uses almost nothing, which I am glad to discover.
Third is on my wire shelving that currently holds two Bounties and two Ultras. The Ultras have grow bowls in them for peas, so they don't run their pumps very often, but I've already figured out what a pump uses, so no biggie. That system is currently using 158-159 watts, which lines up with the listed wattage on the lights plus two active pumps.
It doesn't seem like much, but in comparison to the lights, the pump really does have an impact on energy usage- for something as small as an Ultra it's about 10% of the total. For a Farm, with its bigger lights, it's less- about 5%. Also, that's with the lights and pump on 24/7. The lights are off several hours a day, so the total impact of running a pump all the time is actually higher than that.
In a few days, I'll have better averages. The app also calculates the monthly cost for you, which is a nice little helper for figuring out how much impact the machines actually have on my wallet.
I broke my promise to myself that I wouldn't buy any unneeded electronics this year and picked up 3 of the Wemo Insight Smart Plugs: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DBXNYCS/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I'll be moving them around the house to try different outlets, but the power usage of the AGs is what I really wanted to know. The remote on/off feature isn't all that useful for this, but the live energy usage readings and averages are. I'll have to wait a few days for averages, but I think I've got some numbers for the touchscreens and the pumps.
First one has one of my Farms plugged into it. It's reading around 128-129 watts. so for 2 pumps and 1 touchscreen control you are looking at around 8 watts. Unplugging the water sensors didn't change the wattage used, so their contribution doesn't seem to be very high.
Second is on the Bounty behind my kitchen sink. It's running at 49 watts. That's 4 for the single pump and touchscreen. A little high school algebra and it turns out that the pumps and sensors run about 4 watts and the screen uses almost nothing, which I am glad to discover.
Third is on my wire shelving that currently holds two Bounties and two Ultras. The Ultras have grow bowls in them for peas, so they don't run their pumps very often, but I've already figured out what a pump uses, so no biggie. That system is currently using 158-159 watts, which lines up with the listed wattage on the lights plus two active pumps.
It doesn't seem like much, but in comparison to the lights, the pump really does have an impact on energy usage- for something as small as an Ultra it's about 10% of the total. For a Farm, with its bigger lights, it's less- about 5%. Also, that's with the lights and pump on 24/7. The lights are off several hours a day, so the total impact of running a pump all the time is actually higher than that.
In a few days, I'll have better averages. The app also calculates the monthly cost for you, which is a nice little helper for figuring out how much impact the machines actually have on my wallet.
