Price your utility consumption and expose the true cost of idle dark days.
Note: To size your power supply, use the Lighting Power Calculator. To estimate kilograms of CO2e, use the Carbon Footprint Calculator.
A studio’s electricity bill is not created by lighting alone. Cameras, racks, edit systems, cooling, servers, offices, security systems, and equipment left on standby can keep drawing power even when no production is booked.
The Studio Electricity Cost Calculator turns those loads into a practical operating-cost estimate. It calculates Monthly Electricity Cost, Cost per Shoot Day, and Idle Day Cost Share, while separating energy charges, demand charges, shooting-day consumption, dark-day consumption, and the contribution from cooling and lighting.
Use the calculator to price electricity consumption rather than electrical capacity. If you need to determine how many amps, circuits, or generator capacity a lighting package requires, that is a separate supply-sizing calculation.
The calculator does not assume every connected device operates at full power all day. Instead, it applies duty cycles to lighting, equipment, and cooling.
For lighting:
Effective lighting load = Lighting connected load × Lighting duty cycle
For production equipment:
Effective equipment load = Equipment load × Equipment duty cycle
Cooling is calculated from system capacity, efficiency, and separate shooting and idle duty cycles.
Cooling shooting load = Cooling tons × kW per ton × Shooting cooling duty
Cooling idle load = Cooling tons × kW per ton × Idle cooling duty
Equipment also has a separate standby load for hours when the facility is not actively shooting.
Standby load = Equipment load × Standby load share
These assumptions matter because a 40 kW lighting rig does not necessarily consume 40 kW continuously throughout a 10-hour shooting day.
Enter the production loads first, then describe the operating pattern and electricity tariff.
Enter Lighting Connected Load in kW for the total lighting rig. Use the electrical load of the actual fixtures rather than their equivalent light-output ratings.
Set Lighting Duty Cycle to the percentage of the shooting day that the rig is actually powered. The default is 60 percent. A lighting package may be connected for the entire production but switched, dimmed, or inactive for significant periods.
Enter Equipment Load for cameras, racks, edit bays, servers, monitors, and related production equipment.
Use Equipment Duty Cycle for the percentage of the shooting day that equipment operates at its full modeled load. The default is 80 percent.
Standby Load Share represents the percentage of equipment load that remains active when nobody is shooting. The default is 20 percent.
Use Cooling System Size in tons for the HVAC capacity being modeled.
Enter Cooling Efficiency in kW per ton. The default is 1.0. Lower values represent a more efficient system because less electrical power is required for each ton of cooling.
Set Cooling Duty, Shooting to the percentage of shooting hours the system operates at the modeled load. The default is 70 percent.
Use Cooling Duty, Idle for dark days, when the facility may still require temperature or humidity control. The default is 25 percent.
Enter Base Building Load for offices, corridors, security, networking, servers, and other loads that remain active regardless of whether a production is shooting.
Enter Shooting Hours per Day as camera-ready hours. The default is 10 hours.
Add Shooting Days per Month and Idle Days per Month. Idle days represent dark days when no production is active but standby equipment, cooling, and base building systems can still consume electricity.
The calculator treats the non-shooting hours of a production day as idle operating time too.
Shooting-day kWh = (Shooting load × Shooting hours) + (Idle load × Remaining hours)
Idle-day kWh = Idle load × 24
Use Energy Rate for the price paid per kWh.
If the facility pays a Demand Charge, enter the monthly dollars per kW. Leave it at zero when the tariff does not include one.
Enter Standing Charge for any fixed monthly supply charge.
These components are combined after monthly consumption is calculated.
The outputs show both the total bill estimate and where consumption occurs.
Monthly consumption combines shooting and idle days:
Monthly kWh = (Shooting-day kWh × Shooting days) + (Idle-day kWh × Idle days)
The energy charge is:
Energy charge = Monthly kWh × Energy rate
The calculator treats the modeled shooting load as peak demand:
Demand cost = Peak demand × Demand charge
The final result is:
Monthly electricity cost = Energy charge + Demand charge + Standing charge
This is an estimate based on the entered tariff structure. Actual utility bills can include taxes, time-of-use rates, seasonal charges, power-factor adjustments, tiered pricing, or other fees not represented by these fields.
Cost per Shoot Day combines the energy consumed by one modeled production day with an allocated share of the monthly demand charge.
Cost per shoot day = Shooting-day energy cost + Demand cost ÷ Shooting days
Cost per shooting hour = Cost per shoot day ÷ Shooting hours
These metrics can help studios understand how electricity contributes to the operating cost of a booked production day.
They are not necessarily the amount that should be billed directly to a client. Rate-card decisions may also include rent, labour, maintenance, depreciation, cleaning, and other operating costs.
One of the most useful outputs is Idle Day Cost Share.
Idle consumption = Idle-day kWh × Idle days
Idle share = Idle consumption ÷ Monthly consumption
A result under 20 percent is labeled Efficient Standby, 20 to 35 percent is Typical Standby, and over 35 percent is High Standby Cost.
A high idle share means a large portion of monthly electricity is being consumed on days when the facility is not actively producing revenue. HVAC scheduling, equipment standby, server loads, and base building systems may deserve attention before reducing production lighting.
The Consumption by Source table separates Load, Shooting Day kWh, Idle Day kWh, Monthly kWh, and Monthly Cost.
Consider a facility with a 40 kW lighting rig operating at 60 percent duty and 12 kW of production equipment operating at 80 percent duty.
Lighting contributes:
40 × 60% = 24 kW
Equipment contributes:
12 × 80% = 9.6 kW
The equipment standby share is 20 percent:
12 × 20% = 2.4 kW
Now add a 12.5-ton cooling system using 1.0 kW per ton. Cooling runs at 70 percent duty while shooting and 25 percent while idle.
Shooting cooling load is 8.75 kW, while idle cooling load is approximately 3.13 kW.
With a 6 kW base building load, total shooting draw becomes:
24 + 9.6 + 8.75 + 6 = 48.35 kW
Idle draw is approximately:
2.4 + 3.13 + 6 = 11.53 kW
For a 10-hour shooting day, including 14 hours at idle load, consumption is approximately 644.9 kWh.
One full idle day consumes approximately 276.6 kWh.
At 14 shooting days and 16 idle days per month:
Monthly consumption = approximately 13,454 kWh
At $0.14 per kWh, the energy charge is about $1,883.
A $12 per kW demand charge applied to 48.35 kW adds approximately $580, while a $95 standing charge brings the modeled Monthly Electricity Cost to about $2,559.
The estimated Cost per Shoot Day is approximately $132, or $13.17 per shooting hour.
Idle days consume approximately 4,426 kWh, representing 32.9 percent of total monthly consumption. That places the example in the Typical Standby range.
Cooling accounts for approximately 22.6 percent of consumption, while lighting represents about 25.0 percent.
The example shows why looking only at the lighting rig can miss a large part of the electricity picture.
Use the calculator to test operating changes rather than simply reducing production capacity.
If Idle Day Cost Share is high, compare lower HVAC idle duty, reduced equipment standby, or better scheduling of base loads. Those changes may reduce consumption without affecting the lighting package available to clients.
Duty cycles deserve careful attention. Entering 100 percent for every load assumes equipment runs continuously at full modeled power, which can substantially overstate consumption.
Likewise, do not reduce duty-cycle assumptions just to obtain a lower bill. Use observations, equipment records, or measured operating patterns where available.
The calculator can also help quantify the effect of more efficient lighting or cooling, but it should remain a consumption-cost tool rather than an electrical sizing calculator.
Electricity estimates become more useful when facility schedules, production activity, equipment usage, budgets, and operating costs remain current.
Studio Hero connects scheduling, projects, crew coordination, budgeting, invoicing, equipment tracking, inventory, client workflows, and media assets in one connected studio management system.
Studio Hero’s studio finance management capabilities help teams connect budgets, expenses, invoicing, and financial visibility with the operating activity that drives facility costs.
No. It prices electricity consumption. Amps, circuits, breaker capacity, and generator sizing require a separate power-supply calculation.
A connected lighting rig is rarely at full output for every shooting hour. Duty Cycle estimates the share of the shooting period that the modeled load is actually active.
Equipment Duty Cycle applies during shooting hours. Standby Load Share estimates the reduced equipment load that remains when the facility is not actively shooting.
Cooling, servers, security, networking, standby equipment, and other building systems may continue operating when no production is booked.
Leave Demand Charge at zero. The calculator will then exclude that cost from the estimate.
Not automatically. It represents modeled electricity cost per shooting day. Your rate card may need to recover many additional operating and facility costs.
No. It calculates electricity consumption and cost only. Carbon calculations require an appropriate emissions factor and a separate emissions model.
Recalculate when electricity rates, operating days, lighting or equipment loads, cooling performance, duty cycles, base loads, or tariff terms change materially.
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