Unitfarm Cost Comparison
LED vs. HID Cost Comparison
UNITFARM LED UFO LEDS VS. 1000W HID:
Have you ever compared what the total cost of setting up and running a traditional High Intensity Discharge (HID) garden is compared to a garden set up with the newest Light-Emitting Diode (LED) technology? We wanted to know exactly what a LED grow light vs HPS would look like as well so Unitfarm LED has run the numbers, and the short answer is that using LED lights becomes less expensive, quickly. UNITFARM LED compared an HID-lit garden that used two 1000w Metal Halide (MH) bulbs for vegetative growth and two 1000w High Pressure Sodium (HPS) bulbs for flowering versus a garden lit with two UNITFARM LED UFO320 lights. For the sake of simplicity and to make sure this applied to everyone, we only included the cost of bulbs, ballasts, sealed reflectors, and fans/ducting in this research. We did NOT include the cost of air conditioning for the HID garden because this will vary from slightly expensive to very expensive depending on climate and time of year. If we had included air conditioning, it would make LED grow light vs HPS lighting even more cost effective in less time.
Since we know the frequency of bulb replacement varies from one gardener to the next, we studied two scenarios: “optimal” and “economical,” as explained in the chart below.In the graph below the chart, you can see that UNITFARM LED lights are less expensive at 12 months in the optimal bulb replacement scenario and 18 months in the economical bulb replacement scenario. After this time, you are spending less money each day you garden with UNITFARM LED lights. Also, with LEDs, you will not be adding toxic mercury to the landfills each and every time you change your bulbs, as is the case with all HID and fluorescent bulbs.
HPS change | MH change | LED change | |
UFO LED | N/A | N/A | None |
Optimal | 6M | 12Months | none |
Economical | 12M | 18Months | none |