Alliant Energy is at it again...this time 13%!

thats crazy,,,,seems like some kind of fed dept,,,,maybe ftc should be doing some kind of investigation here.

 

Man they are insane!!!!! My bill hit $375 last month and I am poor so that was quite a hit. I'm going to have to take some tax money and see about led's to save on energy cost.

 

i hear u these guys p#@$ me off .. dude mine was over 400. man i almost ready to quit this hobby.... if soill have alot of nice stuff for sale....

 

I took my 75 gal frag system down last month because of this. I hooked a 40 breeder to my display for a frag tank. And hooked up a manafold system off of a mag 18 to run all my stuff. It figgured up to over 500w that were running 24/7 savings. So hopefully it will help some. I realy think I might switch to leds real soon as that would cut the cost off running my system way down.

 

yea was thinking same thing but dont know how much that would help ? i run 2 160watt vhos and 3 400 watt mh. (icecap ) everything.. just dont know how much i will save ? if i go led ?

 

man that stinks !!!! ill real have to think about it hard... i have alot of stuff..... and corals and chalices.... man i better sleep on it, lol.

 

Well when you add it up with the watts saved for lighting, no chiller, central air running less due to less heat in the room from the lights. I think it would shave quite a bit off my bill. Pluss I could sell my current lighting which is fairly new to get around half of the cost back. The only thing holding me back is that I haven't seen a good sps tank grown under them in person.

 

very true . they say there as bright as 400 but havent seen it in person.. heck i just might go fish only who knows then i could get away with pc lighting.. but thats to easy ill wait and see...lol

 

Problem I have heard about LED lighting is corals do not grow very well under the limited spectrum of light that they produce. I do not have a source on this, but something to investigate. I have switched to T5's and have notices great light , less heat and much less wattage. Plus you dont have to swap out the blubs as frequently.

 

ok have to chime in here..... i did a cost/benefit analysis for LED's vs Metal Halides... Payback was 2 years on investment in terms of savings on wattage use... That did not include bulb replacement. just savings on electrical use. That was one of the reasons i went to LED's when setting up the big tank.

Back to regular programming.... i do believe we as consumers do have the opportunity to comment on he proposed increase. Also according to the news last night the Utility commission is going to "ask" them to reduce overall rates by 2 million.... Somehow i don't think they will get their increase....

 

Mary,

Can you post some of the details of your analysis? I was estimating the payback to be about 3 years when you included bulb costs but that's for replacing 3 250W metal halide bulbs with 3 LED modules (~$1600)

-JB

 

It's not just the power the bulbs take but also the power drawn by the ballasts.

One intangible is that my aquarium room is now quiet. No buzzing ballasts and high pitched fans.

 

Ok, I would like to add some numbers to the discussion. I have 2 AI SOL Blue modules and here are the numbers that I saw using a kill-a-watt meter.  I tested it at full power and what I would likely use once I have my tank set up.  FYI, AI states the power output of each module is 72 watts; mine are within 4% of what they say.

 

Sone, that's great info. Based on that, I'd be cutting my energy use by almost 70% by switching to LED.

How long have you been running the AI LED's? Do you have a feel for how they compare to MH as far as quality of the light?

 

JB, I am still running MH & T5 on my display. I am setting up a frag tank but I am still waiting on the tank so I have no experience with growth and coloration under LEDs.