Trying to reduce my electrical bill $$$

[ragvette]

With 3 x 250mh running it has really increased the electrical bill each month so I've done some research on my current utility provider here in Illinois which is ComEd. ComEd charges a flat rate for electrically usage no matter what time of day you're using it.

My research has found my local utility company offers hourly rates which ComEd calls "œReal-Time Pricing" or RRTP. When a customer is using the RRTP method, ComEd will charge less money during the evening versus during noon when energy demand is at its greatest. Since my tank is on in the evening I hope to see the savings.

I currently signed up and scheduled to get my meter switched over to a smart meter. Hopefully it will be switched over in the next few weeks.

For further information you can go here (the document link at the bottom of the page is helpful): https://www.comed.com/sites/homesavings/Pages/HSrealtimepricing.aspx

Hope this helps. Is anyone currently on this plan?

 

[smellslikeTUNA]

Lots of electric companies do 'tiered' pricing, which is essentially what is going on here. Kinda nice they give you the option. Have you ever considered simply switching from MH to LED? May be expensive upfront but the savings in the long run are well worth it. Also, look into how much electricity each piece of equipment is pulling and consider slowly changing over to more efficient pumps, heaters, etc in the future. Good luck!

 

[ragvette]

Lots of electric companies do 'tiered' pricing, which is essentially what is going on here. Kinda nice they give you the option. Have you ever considered simply switching from MH to LED? May be expensive upfront but the savings in the long run are well worth it. Also, look into how much electricity each piece of equipment is pulling and consider slowly changing over to more efficient pumps, heaters, etc in the future. Good luck!

Looking at building a DIY LED lighting system over the winter to even further reduce cost. Have a Kill-A-Watt meter and have gone over everything on the tank so far. High watt items will be replaced when they break.

 

[kc350twin]

Well with every company on earth trying to be green I'm sure there are ways to trim a few watts everywhere. Lighting and Heating are two large consumers. Many have seen there heaters turn on way more with the use of LED's and T5's. If your chiller comes on all the time during the day then it may be worth it. Are you monitoring your total wattage through the killawatt or do you have a controller that graphs it?


Kc3

 

[jimrawr]

Replacing mh with led isn't going to save you much money. Don't forget when you remove the mh you heaters will be running much more often, in my case my two 150w heaters were running 24h a day after changing to led. That's 300w per hour per day. When I had the mh system, my heaters were off from 10am until around 10pm. Not to mention the cost in upgrading to led that will take years to see any benefit savings from the reduction in wattage from the lighting.

In lighting alone I saved 230w per hour, but added 300w to keep the water warm

 

[jimrawr]

Replacing mh with led isn't going to save you much money. Don't forget when you remove the mh you heaters will be running much more often, in my case my two 150w heaters were running 24h a day after changing to led. That's 300w per hour per day. When I had the mh system, my heaters were off from 10am until around 10pm. Not to mention the cost in upgrading to led that will take years to see any benefit savings from the reduction in wattage from the lighting.

In lighting alone I saved 230w per hour, but added 300w to keep the water warm

 

[ragvette]

Well with every company on earth trying to be green I'm sure there are ways to trim a few watts everywhere. Lighting and Heating are two large consumers. Many have seen there heaters turn on way more with the use of LED's and T5's. If your chiller comes on all the time during the day then it may be worth it. Are you monitoring your total wattage through the killawatt or do you have a controller that graphs it?


Kc3

Chilling is not an issue since the tank is in the basement so it remains cool even in the summer. During the winter the heaters are on when the MH lights are off and basically the heaters are off when the MH lights are on. The benefit of the heaters is they are normally on for a min or two and then off compared to MH where they would be on straight for 8 hours.

Was using the Killawatt meter on some stuff but I have upgraded and got a controller to monitor. Need to add some further monitoring to add all the usage up. Was thinking of a entire house monitor.

 

[ragvette]

Well I got the new bill from ComEd after switching over to the hourly rate and .....


I saved $67.95 switching over to the hourly rate which is basically a 33% saving. Very happy with the switch over. Standard ComEd rate is $223.47 and with the new hourly rate it's now $155.52 with a savings of $67.95.

I have notice that the $ per kWh rates are extremely low at night which is when the tanks on running with full lights. The concern that I have is I need to monitor the usage during the daytime summer months when the $ per kWh is greatly increased during peak usage hours.

 

[ragvette]

Replacing mh with led isn't going to save you much money. Don't forget when you remove the mh you heaters will be running much more often, in my case my two 150w heaters were running 24h a day after changing to led. That's 300w per hour per day. When I had the mh system, my heaters were off from 10am until around 10pm. Not to mention the cost in upgrading to led that will take years to see any benefit savings from the reduction in wattage from the lighting.

In lighting alone I saved 230w per hour, but added 300w to keep the water warm

Those are my thoughts.

 

[hvacman250]

Replacing mh with led isn't going to save you much money. Don't forget when you remove the mh you heaters will be running much more often, in my case my two 150w heaters were running 24h a day after changing to led. That's 300w per hour per day. When I had the mh system, my heaters were off from 10am until around 10pm. Not to mention the cost in upgrading to led that will take years to see any benefit savings from the reduction in wattage from the lighting.

In lighting alone I saved 230w per hour, but added 300w to keep the water warm

Not to argue, but Im only using a 300W heater for 225G tank, 30G frag tank, and 50G sump, all open top and tied together to maintain 80*. Why are you having to use a 300W on a 92G? You must keep your house frigid (heck, mines at 67*) I only run 150W heaters on my 100 gallon breeder set-ups to maintain 82*.

I'm running 144 LEDs (3W Crees=432W) @ 60% = 259W
The alternative would be 250W MH = 750W
259+300= 559W vs. 750. I'm saving almost 200W per day.

 

[jimrawr]

Well a 150w eheim jager is rated for between 50-70 gallons, and I have a 92g with a 20g sump. I use two of the 150's. I had a 200w heater in the past that was struggling on its own to keep the temps up at night when my house temperature was set to 70. I would wake up and the temps would be around 76 when the controller is set to 78. During the day the temps would rise back up to 78 with help from the lighting

Its funny because to you mine seems like too much wattage for heaters, and for me yours sounds like its not nearly enough!! What kind of heaters do you use? Curious to see whats their rating..

 

[Arkayology]

Replacing mh with led isn't going to save you much money. Don't forget when you remove the mh you heaters will be running much more often, in my case my two 150w heaters were running 24h a day after changing to led. That's 300w per hour per day. When I had the mh system, my heaters were off from 10am until around 10pm. Not to mention the cost in upgrading to led that will take years to see any benefit savings from the reduction in wattage from the lighting.

In lighting alone I saved 230w per hour, but added 300w to keep the water warm

I would have to disagree. Considering the amount of money spent on electricity for the MH pendents and the fact that you should change the bulbs every 10 months (we will say you spend 50.00 per bulb), you would see a considerable savings after just a couple years of switching to LEDs. You can argue that the heaters kicking on more often will run up the electricity bill, but not that much...

 

[karsseboom]

I would have to disagree. Considering the amount of money spent on electricity for the MH pendents and the fact that you should change the bulbs every 10 months (we will say you spend 50.00 per bulb), you would see a considerable savings after just a couple years of switching to LEDs. You can argue that the heaters kicking on more often will run up the electricity bill, but not that much...

Bulb replacement shouldn't be considered in with his electricity bill. I replace my radium once a year an sometimes longer. LEDs won't save much money at all and switching to t5 saves none. Waiting a few years for the fixture to pay for itself kinda suck and is not worth it since by that time there will be about 10 new led fixtures and your will be obsolete.

 

[robs.mark]

Bulb replacement shouldn't be considered in with his electricity bill. I replace my radium once a year an sometimes longer. LEDs won't save much money at all and switching to t5 saves none. Waiting a few years for the fixture to pay for itself kinda suck and is not worth it since by that time there will be about 10 new led fixtures and your will be obsolete.

I agree the bulbs shouldn't be included, but it's ignorant to ignore it as a saving made by switching to LED's. As for the obsolete comment, well you can say that about anything you buy! Tha reality is that the op would probably be using saving 105w per light by switching over, and the heaters wouldn't be on permanently to counteract that. Chances are the tank is inside and the room temp wouldn't be far from his tank operating temp.

 

[GPB]

I'm getting solar panels installed. They will reduce my utility bill by a third but they are expensive. The nice thing is the government pays for about a third of the cost. Plus, since energy will most likely only go up, the amount of savings per Kw should only go up in the future as well.

I also replaced all of the recessed flood light bulbs in my main living areas with LEDs'.

Another guy here got rid of most of his lights except 2 T5 actinics by using Solatubes. Another guy ran a recirculating pump from his Koi pond outside through his sump to provide cooling during the summereliminating need for a chiller.

Is you home well insulated? Decent Windows and doors? Could shave 10-15% using insulation.

You could probably find other ways to save in your general household that could exceed the impact from just making changes to your aquarium.

 

[alton]

Some of the things I do to save is turn off all pumps, skimmer, powerhead in fuge, wave maker, in night mode. I have two return pumps 1 40PX and 1 50PXX, the 40PX also turns off in night mode. On my skimmer it has not skimmed any less not running 24/7. Also we need to look at return and skimmer pumps because lighting only runs for 10 hours a day, but pumps run 24/365. Unless you need a pressure pump, buy a return pump. An example would be a Pan World 100PX(120w@790GPH) versus a 50PXX(90w@1110GPH) every little bit helps. FYI @ $.15 a KWH that is $39.42 a year savings paying for the pump in 5 years.

 

[jimrawr]

Then you also have to add the cost of replacing LEDS. Just because the manufacturer says they last 5 years, that doesnt mean the bulbs will produce enough strength to grow corals that long.. I mean the MH bulb is still working when we replace it, right? Same with T5's, the bulb is working when we replace them.

 

[Garage1217]

Here is a tool that will help you with the facts of savings. It is a cost calculator for aquariums. For a FACT, Leds can save you a load of money overall, especially if you take in all the considerations and that you are running 750w of halide.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1839506&highlight=aquarium+cost+calculator



For example, My fixture I designed a few years ago was to replace 3qty of 250w halides. It averages through a day to be a 255w fixture because of the ramp up and ramp down profiles I have set "sunrise to sunset". At my rate of 11 cents per KWH locally, that is a savings of $178 a year.

Not to mention my savings in....
- Over 50% lower evap that my previous SMALLER system that ran halides! Saves me on DI
- Drastically lower heat radiated into my home. Here in the hot desert, heating the house with halides was KILLING me electricity wise as my AC was always fighting to keep the house cool. That could be the opposite for some depending on your summer temps. I saw a HUGE drop in my monthly electric bill from the change while logging my AC usage via a current cost meter. Over $140 a month in the peak of the summer savings alone just on AC.
- No more purchasing bulbs every year and a half or every time one would happen to blow or when a ballast went. The crap that would happen at random was costing me a ton.
Overall, I would never look back.

Another thing you can fine tune to save a LOT of electricity, is your aquarium temp. Most people target what I consider to be a silly 80F. Sure it can help corals grow faster but it is not necessary and generally promotes excess algae growth. I keep my heaters on a controller at 74F with only a 1F swing so when the tank hits 74, it only raises the temp to 75. When the house warms up more in the summer, I never see the heaters in use at all as the tank self maintains at around 78 in the summer. I have always kept my tanks and corals this cool and have never had a problem. Also I used to turn out a LOT of frags, so I never had issues with growth.

Awhile back, I did a whole energy efficiency thread located below that I really need to update. I had several naysayers claim that all my efforts would not make any difference, boy they were wrong! My previous high electric bill prior to my little quest was over $460. After everything I did and changed up or adjusted, my past high bill was around $260. I also hit the lowest electric bill I have ever had this winter at around $130ish. Previously it was always over or at $200 in the winter.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1809131&highlight=aquarium+cost+calculator

 

[NatureNerd]

Replacing mh with led isn't going to save you much money. Don't forget when you remove the mh you heaters will be running much more often, in my case my two 150w heaters were running 24h a day after changing to led. That's 300w per hour per day. When I had the mh system, my heaters were off from 10am until around 10pm. Not to mention the cost in upgrading to led that will take years to see any benefit savings from the reduction in wattage from the lighting.

In lighting alone I saved 230w per hour, but added 300w to keep the water warm

Something is very different with your tank compared with mine. I keep my house at 64 degrees at night (in the winter) it goes up to 67-68 in the daytime. My single 150W heater only runs about 10-15% of the time in the night. It runs less than 5% in the day. I have a 75g tank with 25-30g sump. My tank stays at 78 degrees. I can't imagine adding 300W of heat to my tank non-stop. I would cook my fish at that level. Do you run with a fan on constantly? Maybe my canopy helps hold in the heat better. My canopy fans only turn on if the tank temperature goes above 78. I don't have or need a chiller. In the summer, my heater rarely comes on at all.

My switch to LED's has resulted in a savings of $30 - $40 per month on my electric bills, more in the summer. We have tiered costs in CA and reducing those last few percent of power useage make a pretty big difference.

 

[NatureNerd]

Then you also have to add the cost of replacing LEDS. Just because the manufacturer says they last 5 years, that doesnt mean the bulbs will produce enough strength to grow corals that long.. I mean the MH bulb is still working when we replace it, right? Same with T5's, the bulb is working when we replace them.

We have long term data on LED's from other industries. If LED's have appropriate heat sinking, they don't degrade over time, either spectrally or in terms of output power. Failures are usually catastrophic. They simply stop lighting one day. Their mean-time-before-failure is usually within a few percent of what is indicated by the vendors. T5's and MH drift in spectrum and power as they age.