It is relatively inexpensive to operate a submersible well pump. In this blog I will show you how to calculate the cost to operate your submersible pump and motor. You will only need to know three things in order to calculate the cost.
You will need to know the Motor Power Consumption (in kilowatts), the Operating Hours (per month), and the Cost of Electricity (per kilowatt hour).
The power consumption of the motor is normally supplied by the manufacturer. Find the maximum load in watts of the motor in your pump technical and/or specification data sheet. You will then need to divide the number by 1000 in order to arrive at the value in kilowatts.
The operating hours are calculated using the average gallons of water consumed per day and the flow rate in gallons per minute of the pump. In the United States the average person consumes 120 gallons of water per day. We then divide the number of gallons per day by the flow rate in gallons per minute of the pump to arrive at the minutes of daily pump runtime. For the monthly operating hours we will multiply the minutes per day of pump runtime times 30 days.
The cost of electricity varies greatly by location in the United States. The average cost is $0.12 per Kilowatt hour.
You will then multiply the three (power consumption, operating hours, cost of electricity) together to calculate total cost per month.
Example:
Known parameters:
- ½ horsepower motor consumes 960 watts
- Pump flow rate is 10 gallons per minute
- 4 person household
- Electricity is $0.15 per kilowatt hour
Calculate:
Motor consumption: 960 watts / 1000 = 0.96 kilowatts
Operating hours: 4 people X 120 gallons per day = 480 gallons per day
480 gallons per day / 10 gallons per minute = 48 minutes per day
48 minutes per day X 1 month (30 days) = 24 hours per month
Cost of electricity: $0.15 per kilowatt hour
Cost per month = motor consumption X operating hours X cost of electricity
= 0.96 kilowatts X 24 hours per month X $0.15 per kilowatt hour
= $3.46 per month
We are a distributor of pumps, packaged pumping systems, on-site wastewater treatment equipment, on-site wastewater treatment systems, and custom electrical control panels for water and wastewater applications, water well supplies, drilling supplies, and water treatment equipment. Please feel free to reach out to our experts at 855.329.4519 if you would like help calculating your cost.