2024-02-26
Two-stroke mix fuel currently costs $4.32 a gallon. 550 CFM gas blowers (when well-tuned, and they almost never are) use 0.43 gallons per hour, or $1.85 / hour.
Electricity in Illinois costs $0.15 per kWh, or $0.17 per kWh, with converter loss. To run a 550 CFM (1,000 watt) electric blower we need $0.17 / hour.
For 2,000 hours of use a gas blower has $3,700 in fuel costs, and electric blower has $340 in fuel costs.
For every 2,000 hours of blowing, a landscaper will save $3,360 in fuel costs, at current prices—a cost ratio savings of 11 to 1.
Gas blowers typically are burning significantly more than 0.43 gallons of gas per hour because of clogged filters and universally poor maintenance.
The gas blowers used in the study appear to be 550 CFM models, so an equivalent electric device was used for comparison.
These calculations are only energy costs. Li-ion batteries wear out over time as well, so the savings and expenses tend to offset.
From the fact sheet prepared for the city of Portland Oregon (https://www.quietcleanpdx.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Gas-Powered-Leaf-Blower-Emissions-Factsheet-11.12.pdf)
The website (https://www.gasbuddy.com/gasprices/illinois/evanston) gives us a current cost of about $3.50 per gallon of gas, plus $0.80 for bulk two-stroke oil totaling $4.30 per gallon of fuel. Additionally, the landscaper has to pay for gasoline storage containers, store the gas, breathe the gasoline fumes when filling blower tanks, spills gas and oil and drives to the gas station to fill his equipment tanks. Batteries have to be dropped into chargers.
Bulk two-stroke oil ranges from $0.80 (cheapest, bulk, which number I used) to $1.40. For the bulk oil it is a virtual certainty that it will not be mixed optimally in the field, so the costs are probably higher.
https://opti2-4.com/index.php?dispatch=categories.view&category_id=165