Post by donnybowers on Jun 2, 2021 22:42:19 GMT -5
I will be using this program personally to get a rough estimate of how much it costs me in lighting to grow lettuce and greens in the winter. I grow them in a window, so I don't need real expensive high wattage lights. I'm able to grow 2 (possibly 3 or 4) lettuce plants with one $1.50 11 watt "daylight" light. Most lettuce takes about 4 to 8 weeks to mature in Kratky non-cirulating hydroponics (depending on how mature I want them). So I'm able to grow 4 lettuce plants in an east facing window for between 50 cents and $1.00 in electric costs (@ 8 hrs lighting per day). Knowing this makes a big difference in my decision as to whether it's worth it for me to grow my own in my window(s). In a south facing window I could probably get by with 5 or 6 hours of lighting instead of 8 because in the northern hemisphere the sun is more prominent in the south.
You will probably need to change the "Power Supply Charges" values according to your electric company in your area. I've based this on DTE Energy in Michigan. For my uses this program gives me a fairly accurate calculation. Better than the average "Estimated Energy Cost" on the light bulb packages.
A standard 9.5 watt LED bulb, estimated to cost $1.14 per year at 3 hours per day actually costs me about $1.69 per year according to the program. According to hand calculations I've made in the past, this is definitely much more accurate for DTE Energy in Michigan than what the package says. I doubt if the program will ever be off by more than a few pennies per month (for my electric company). The reason it will almost certainly be off a few pennies most months is because there are some electrical charges that vary throughout the year. But they are very small charges, so I don't expect more than a few cents per month variance at the very most. And actually those small charges may or may not be effected by how much electricity I use (I need to do more research on this).
This program, or a modification of it might be good on a gardening website. Especially one that covers indoor gardening. It could be handy on other DIY type sites also and can also be used to roughly estimate the cost of running other electrical devices besides just lights.
I don't have a real lot of REMarks in here, but I believe the way I name variables should be helpful in understanding what each part of the program does. The first few variables have REMarks because I abbreviated these variables.
You will probably need to change the "Power Supply Charges" values according to your electric company in your area. I've based this on DTE Energy in Michigan. For my uses this program gives me a fairly accurate calculation. Better than the average "Estimated Energy Cost" on the light bulb packages.
A standard 9.5 watt LED bulb, estimated to cost $1.14 per year at 3 hours per day actually costs me about $1.69 per year according to the program. According to hand calculations I've made in the past, this is definitely much more accurate for DTE Energy in Michigan than what the package says. I doubt if the program will ever be off by more than a few pennies per month (for my electric company). The reason it will almost certainly be off a few pennies most months is because there are some electrical charges that vary throughout the year. But they are very small charges, so I don't expect more than a few cents per month variance at the very most. And actually those small charges may or may not be effected by how much electricity I use (I need to do more research on this).
This program, or a modification of it might be good on a gardening website. Especially one that covers indoor gardening. It could be handy on other DIY type sites also and can also be used to roughly estimate the cost of running other electrical devices besides just lights.
I don't have a real lot of REMarks in here, but I believe the way I name variables should be helpful in understanding what each part of the program does. The first few variables have REMarks because I abbreviated these variables.
gosub [styling]
'ESTIMATE COST OF RUNNING GROW LIGHTS PROJECT
'This code is released to the public domain.
'No guarantee or warranty expressed or
'implied. Use as you wish.
'CHANGE DATA FROM ELECTRIC BILL BELOW.
'Because every state, country and electric
'company will be different, you may need
'to make some changes here and/or possibly
'to the program. The idea is to get a fairly
'close estimate of costs. This data does not
'include the flat monthly charges that we all
'pay just to have electric service. It also
'doesn't include the cost of the LED lights
'themselves.
PSCC=0.045 ' Power Supply Capacity Charge
PSNC=0.04176 ' Power Supply Non-capacity Charge
PSCR=0.00322 ' Power Supply Cost Recovery
Distro=0.06611 ' Distribution
salesTax=.04 ' Residential Michigan Sales Tax
'END DATA FROM ELECTRIC BILL
'Number used to calculate cost plus taxes
taxCalc=1+salesTax
'add all the power supply charges
KWHcost=PSCC+PSNC+PSCR+Distro ' cost per Kilowatt Hour
WHcost=KWHcost/1000 ' convert to cost per Watt Hour
[start]
html "<center>"
print
input " How many watts is the light ";watts
input " How many hours per day ";hours
input " How many lights on timer [0 if no timer] ";lights
print
html "</center>"
'Approx. How many watts a mechanical timer uses
if lights>0 then timerWatts=1/lights ' mechanical timer
'unREMark line below if using solid state timer
'if lights>0 then timerWatts=0.5/lights ' solid state timer
dailyWatts=watts*hours
if lights>0 then dailyWatts=(watts+timerWatts)*hours
subtotal=dailyWatts*WHcost
dailyCost=subtotal*taxCalc
'format output
dailyCost$=using("###.##",dailyCost)
yearlyCost$=using("####.##",dailyCost*365.25)
monthlyCost$=using("####.##",(dailyCost*365.25)/12)
nineMonths$=using("####.##",((dailyCost*365.25)/12)*9)
monthlyCost=(dailyCost*365.25)/12
nineMonths=monthlyCost*9
html "<hr><center><table border='1' padding='4'><tr><td>"
print "1 LIGHT"
print " Daily cost "
print " Monthly cost "
print " Yearly cost "
print " Nine Months "
html "</td><td align='right'>"
print
print dailyCost$
print monthlyCost$
print yearlyCost$
print nineMonths$
if lights>0 then
html "</td><td>"
dailyCost=(subtotal*taxCalc)*lights
dailyCost$=using("###.##",dailyCost)
yearlyCost$=using("####.##",dailyCost*365.25)
monthlyCost$=using("####.##",(dailyCost*365.25)/12)
nineMonths$=using("####.##",((dailyCost*365.25)/12)*9)
print str$(lights);" LIGHTS"
print " Daily cost "
print " Monthly cost "
print " Yearly cost "
print " Nine Months "
html "</td><td align='right'>"
print
print dailyCost$
print monthlyCost$
print yearlyCost$
print nineMonths$
end if
html "</td></tr></table><hr>"
print
input " Again [y/n]";answer$
html "</center>"
if lower$(answer$)="n" then goto [quit]
goto [start]
[quit]
end
[styling]
cssclass "td", "{padding:4px;background:#000;color:white;font-size:22px;}"
cssclass "body", "{background:#222;color:white;font-size:22px;}"
return