Investing in a solar powered grow room can be the best way to insure profitability of an indoor grow room, keeping utility bills low and costs down.
A solar powered grow room might be just right for you, whether you tie on to the grid or keep a low profile with an off grid system; the benefits of solar are increasing as energy prices go up. The reasons for solar include security, saving money, profitability, and the environment.
-
On the Security reason, it is safer to go off grid because police and Federal DEA agents look for raised electricity bills and infrared heat signatures of houses, LED light grow rooms use less electricity and produce less of a heat signatures. Also in a power outage, if you have a solar off-grid system, you will be able to run for days with out any interruption, this is important because if you lose power it can potentially stunt the growth of your plants.
-
On the Environmental issue, of course by producing all your own energy from the sun, you are creating and using 100% renewable energy. Even having a solar system supplement the bills by net-metering (selling electricity back to the utility) can save a grower big money. We will discuss average electricity usage of growers and typical electrical load in a second.
-
On saving money, a solar powered grow room can save $$$ in electricity bills and can offset an approximate monthly 800 kilowatts hours, the equivalent of a small grow room. 800 kilowatt hours would be 800 times 10cents/kilowatt or 80 dollars US. A small grow room has the potential to double the usage of a house’s electricity usage. (average American family uses 936 kWh per month)
-
If you can offset this cost of running the lights in a grow room, you have significantly raised your profitability and lowered you cost to produce the marijuana.
Now let’s talk about sizing a solar electric system for you. We need to find your load of your system, this depends on how many lights, possibly pumps (for hydroponics), etc…. Your average daily power consumption will be expressed in watt hours per day. (watt-hours or wh)
RULE OF THUMB: LED lights use less energy and produce more light with lower wattage, a rule of thumb to use is that for every 240 Watts of high powered LEDs you get the equivalent of 1000 watts. Typical grow lights will be 1000 watts if they are of any quality such as most HPS and HID grow lights.
