Power Cost of LED Displays

- Mike Prongue 

Many very technical people in the Electronic Message Center (EMC) industry, those who are licensed in electrical and in state construction regulations, look the other way and suddenly seem to want to change the subject when this innocent question is asked by a curious customer:

“What will this cost me to run?”

There is no reason to panic! And, better still, this question is a buying signal. If the customer has gotten this far into their evaluation of a possible EMC for their business, now is not the time to "freeze up". A great reply to this question may seal the deal for you.

It’s a very simple question to answer and you can start by calling your power company, or searching online for their price per kilowatt of power. If you don’t even want to do that, use the average of 10 cents per kilowatt ($.10).

Next determine the power consumption of the EMC in watts. This information has been provided by the manufacturer. If you do not have the watt specification then you will have the amperage draw of the EMC.

Remember that Watts = Amps x Voltage. So if you have an EMC rated at 10 amps, and it is installed in a 110 volt service, you have 10 (amps) x 110 (volts) or 1100 watts of power consumption (per hour).

1100 watts of power is 1.1 kilo Watts of power, of course kilo means “thousand”. We already determined the cost of power was  five cents per kilowatt.

If the customer runs the display non-stop, at peak power, displaying all lamps all of the time for24 hours per day, then it will cost approximately:

1.1 (kilowatts)   x   .10 (cost per kilowatt)  x   24 hours   =   $2.62* per day.

If it is a double-sided EMC, then the cost would double to $5.24 per day if the EMC ran at maximum output, all the time, no slide transitions, no interruptions, fully illuminated.

Simply because no EMC, in use by a customer, runs at maximum output all the time, you should use an very realistic percentage of max power when estimating average power consumption-- 30% of max. Just tell your customer to expect about a 1/3rd of maximum cost- even more affordable - $5.24 x .30  =  $1.58* per day!

This is a great investment. What other form of advertising only costs  $1.58 per day for thousands of exposures to thousands of customers (driving by)? Now you can share this great advertising deal with your customers- head held high, ready to impress!

Now close that sale!

* Always check with your local power company for peak/ off-peak rates, and understand that this article is a general statement on the subject and not specific to your project.

**Note all posts/thoughts/writings are strictly the viewpoint of me and me alone and do not reflect nor speak for Vantage LED’s beliefs, attitudes, thoughts, etc. unless specifically stated.