Wow Fluoroman, you were freaking ME out just reading this. I hate high power loads and heat signatures with a passion. I grow with CFLs now and will until I am 100% sure I can grow with HIDs without any legal problems at all.
You Can calculate Exactly what your power bill will be.
Add up all your loads.... All the lights, AC and Fans. Many times the watts of something is estimated on the box, but if you look at all the paperwork you will see the true wattage. Add up all those loads. Determine how often they are running. So if you are running (lets say) 9kw, 12 hours a day you are running 108kwh (108 kw hours per day). So if you look at your bill you will see how much you are being charged per kilowatt hour. If it is 9 cents (you have to look at your bill, I have no idea what it will be) you multiply .09x108= $9.72 per day. Multiply that by how many days in the month, say 30 and you have $9.72x30= $291.60. If you are only running that for two months than you are looking at almost $600 for power to flower your ladies. That don't even count on how much you spend to veg them.
But that is not it... Many power companies add surcharges for exceeding certain amounts per month or surcharges for use during PEAK periods in the day. You may be able to get a cost break by running them at night, and that will give you a break on the cooling too.
That is a hell of a lot of wattage you are using. I am sure the payoff could be high, but Man, there is no getting around the spike in your power bill. If you in an area where they look at that kind of thing you may invite another visit from a meter reader and then a FLIR (Foward Looking Infrared Recording). Cops can do that without a warrant. A lot of times a meter reader can get a reward for breaking up an illegal grow op. I have just read that on the internet, so I have no first hand information.
I think it is great if you are supplying a legal dispensary or something, but getting rich from weed illegally will mess up your life like there is no tomorrow.
