Electricity Use for Growing Marijuana Indoors

Marijuana growing is one of the friendliest plantations we can do. We can grow it using different methods and unlike other kinds of plants, growing marijuana gives you the choice to cultivate even if you are living in midst of a very busy city. On the other side, if you have bigger and wider spaces, it would be better since the bigger the area the more Marijuana to be planted.

However, growing Marijuana can be a lot of cost too. In both indoor and outdoor growing, you need to have a start-up cost in order to efficiently provide all the necessities of your Marijuana. One of its biggest expenses will be the electricity expense.

Upon deciding to grow Marijuana plant indoor, you need to be prepared with your electricity bill. Yes, literally your energy billing will really increase more than what you expected. Since growing indoor requires you to provide light, right temperature, air flow and etc. you need to use machineries and other ways to provide all of these needs with the use of electricity. But, we always have a choice, a better choice where we can save little amount of scent from our pocket. Lastly, it is important that we will be aware about the amount of cost with our electricity in order to know the possible and closer to fix energy expense.

How to find out the cost of electricity?

Finding out the cost of electricity is very helpful to us as growers. It enables us to determine the estimated if not fix cost of our electricity every month. In this way, we will be prepared with the payment without sacrificing our crop.

In estimating your energy cost, you need the following information:

• Your place’s electricity cost

Simply look at your energy bill to find out how much is the cost of energy in your area, this is measured in kWh.

• Wattage of light/fan/pump

This information can be found in the box of your appliance.

• Number of hours of the appliance’s usage

Do not forget to remember how many hours you use your appliance in one day. For example you are using the fan for about 12 hours. Simply multiply 12 hours to 30 days, which will approximately 360 hours in a month.

Formula in finding the monthly energy cost of your Marijuana plant

Multiply the cost of electricity to the number of hours and watts/1000 = total cost

Take a look at this example

• Cost of electricity – $0.38/kWh (this is the kWh in our area however, in some areas the kWh will vary differently).
• Number of hours – 360 hours( in one day, I used appliance for 12 hours and I multiplied it with 360 days since this is just a calculation of one month electricity cost)
• Wattage – for example I am using a 400 MH/HPS, I will divide it with 1000 and the result is 0.40 kW.

$0.38 kWh x 360 x 0.40 kW = $54.72

This is just an example with the use of only one appliance in one month. You must remember that other appliances to support your Marijuana plant should be calculated too.

Safety tips for electricity

As they said prevention is better than cure. As indoor growers, it is crucial that we will be mindful about the precautionary measures for our electricity most especially that we will be using many appliances that will run for a quiet long period of time.

• If there will be instances that your equipment is having a contact with water, avoid touching it.
• Always keep the area where you grow your Marijuana plants dry and make sure that you will immediately clean up any spills.
• Make sure to keep your grown area neat and clean. Do not put unnecessary things within the area.
• You need to keep off all your electronics off the floor. Follow the good rule which is “the electricity should be above the waist while the water will be below the waist”.
• Provide a surge protector
• Make sure that you installed a smoke detector
• You need the protection of Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter(GFCI). This will stop the flow of power in the plug when there will be any current leakage.
• Make sure that your circuit breaker could able to handle the amount of your electricity consumption
• Be vigilant and always have a presence of mind. If something is not right, make a right move.

What are the simple tips for saving electricity?

For the plants

• As possible, keep the growing of your plant healthy and fast. In this way you can save time and energy usages since there are no delays with the growth of your Marijuana plants.
• Choose the type of Marijuana plant that has a short flowering stage
• Choose a strain that will let you to harvest your crop as soon as after 3 months
• These are usually auto-flowering strains.

For the growing process

• Use full lights during the time where the kWh of electricity is at its cheapest. There are company who provide time in a day where they have cheaper/cheapest kWh cost.
• Use a wiser light schedule especially during the vegetative stage.
• Choose a more effective lighting
• When your plant is not yet in need of high powered lighting, it would be better if you will lower your light power.
• Use the right distance between your light and your plants.

For temperature management

• Place your fan in the most effective place/area
• Do not use fans if they are not yet needed
• Lower your fan’s power especially if you are growing with a little open space

As growers, we should follow simple tips in order to save even a little scent. However, we should not compromise the growth of our Marijuana plants because of the expenses we may have. It would be better that we will conduct a thorough research about tips in effectively growing Marijuana indoor. Lastly we should always be physically, mentally, emotionally, socially and financially prepared when we decide to start growing Marijuana indoor since our effort will be our big capital.