Non-standard Light Cycles

I am close to the above mentioned to maximize my consumption and to balance my load. I personally don’t worry about the electric company, however I do worry about power transmission and load on my lines. If my power transformer is 150kva, 240v I have a limit of ballasts that I can run. lets forget about a.c fans etc and just talk about ballasts. For my application I have 400amps per phase, 3 phases for a total of 1200amps. :wink:

Each ballast can draw 1150watts at 240v. Doing the math this comes out to 4.79 or 4.8 amps. We will round to 5amps per ballast. So, on paper I can run 240 ballasts. (not factoring % for constant load) BUT, as Baudelaire says, if I divide the day in two 12 hour cycles, I can now run twice as many ballasts on two, 12 hour cycles.

So,
I have 1 room that runs 18/6. The off time or dark cycle is during the peak electrical tariff.
2 flower rooms that will be on alternating 12 hour cycles.

I have better pictures on a disk somewhere but here is a link of my greenhouse.

I don’t use transparent, or clear roof/plastic, there are many options available. With or without UV protection, breathable or no, etc etc. I had to import mine from Israel. Depending on your frame type or structure, I used metal wire parallel to the ground as a guide to slide the thick black plastic on to block out sunlight or as not to let artificial light escape at night. In some of the pictures you can see the black plastic. One person can physically open or close one section of plastic to black out, or, to allow light in and takes about 15 min. With two people you can open or close a section of 2500m2 in about 5 min.

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