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Recent research highlights the substantial energy demands of cannabis cultivation, with facilities consuming about 2% of the electricity in most states where it’s grown. This heavy energy use, along with natural gas and propane consumption, means that energy expenses account for roughly 33% of a cultivation business’s operating costs. Yet, there’s a silver lining: these businesses can achieve significant savings and reduce their overall resource consumption by adopting resource efficiency measures.
As the legalization of recreational cannabis continues to grow, it is creating a new sector with significant energy needs. This budding industry is creating a need for policymakers and utilities to understand the energy requirements of cannabis growers better and find ways to manage demands on energy systems.
Standard energy management practices can be challenging for indoor cannabis growers for a variety of reasons. Every grow facility and its growing needs are unique. While codes and standards do exist in many states, there are no unified standards or protocols for energy management for cannabis growers that offer a comprehensive guide to the best strategies. But despite these challenges, opportunities for better energy efficiencies exist in the indoor cannabis sector.
Energy Management: Current Conditions
Depending on the environment, growing cannabis can be very energy-intensive. Indoor cannabis cultivation, specifically, can be a resource-intensive process, with energy demands being one of the greatest contributors to the industry’s environmental footprint.
Equipment used to produce cannabis in indoor environments comprises complex systems that are used to create ideal growing conditions. The environmental changes needed to optimize plant growth conditions while reducing energy inputs can significantly impact energy consumption, peak demand, and plant growth.
This energy consumption is the industry’s leading driver of greenhouse gas emissions and is one of the best opportunities for growers to cut costs. This approach is not just a cost-cutting measure, but a strategic move in a market where decreasing wholesale prices and increasing competition are putting pressure on growers to be more cost-effective to stay in business. The potential for significant cost reduction through energy management should be a source of optimism and motivation for all growers.
While growing cannabis in a controlled indoor space leads to more consistent year-round production, high energy costs and increasing price competition are pushing cultivators to become familiar with the energy impacts. Most indoor cannabis facilities rely on both natural gas and electricity; their electricity usage is usually much higher. In grow houses, the main culprits behind energy consumption are lighting, heating, and HVAC/ventilation.
Process Description
With cannabis legalization gaining traction in many states, indoor growing operations are increasing, and with them, there is a need for innovative and efficient energy solutions.
As the cannabis industry continues to grow, electric demands for cultivation facilities’ could potentially lead to grid outages that affect the local community. We like to say, “You don’t know what you don’t track.”
With the proper knowledge and understanding of how and where their facility uses energy, growers can evaluate improvement opportunities and make informed decisions. This understanding is empowering and can help growers navigate the challenges of energy management in a rapidly growing industry.
As the cannabis industry matures, the availability of energy, water, lighting, and space efficiency metrics data becomes imperative. The industry as a whole and individual cultivators should have intimate knowledge of these measures and how new technologies and behaviors can positively affect resource and production efficiency.
Innovative Approaches to Water and Energy Management
SafetyNet has developed a truly comprehensive Energy Management program to help cannabis operations better understand the industry’s energy management requirements.
It is very rare that an organization cannot significantly reduce its energy costs by implementing small changes in how energy is used. Yet, surprisingly, top management rarely accepts this approach, even when it can be shown that energy costs can be significantly reduced and may require only a small financial investment – it’s a win-win situation for the business and the environment.
Energy is a controllable resource; using it efficiently helps increase profits by reducing costs. Access to energy is becoming more costly and environmentally damaging. The era of cheap energy is coming to an end in many countries. Our recommendations for practical implementation approaches for energy management can help organizations of all sizes sustainably manage their energy use.
SafetyNet sees energy management as the necessary steps to affect organizational, technical, and behavioral actions in an economically sound manner to improve any organization’s energy performance. Energy management means systematic attention to energy to continually improve energy performance and maintain these achieved improvements.
Bringing It All Together
So, is it possible to change and move towards a more energy-efficient model in cannabis cultivation? The answer is absolutely yes. Indoor cannabis cultivation is being transformed with new technologies and strategies to manage energy usage better.
We are facing an era of rapid change along the entire energy system, and as we integrate more renewables and work to move affordable, reliable, and secure energy sources to where they are needed most, these changes will dramatically affect the design and operation of our energy infrastructure. The grid of the future will need to accommodate:
- Increasing penetration of wind and solar generation and distributed energy resources
- Increasing electrification and digitalization of the economy
- Rising rates of infrastructure reaching the end of its useful life
- Customers developing new ways to save money through a more sophisticated and interactive approach to energy consumption
- New communication technologies that significantly improve the understanding of current grid conditions
Sustainability will become an integral part of every business agenda, and there will be no shortage of challenges for companies in this field as time progresses. Linking actions and impact in real-time will provide the unparalleled ability to identify and verify the impact of energy and green improvement projects and ensure that gains are sustained, allowing us to validate waste reduction and help determine the actual financial impact.
Integrating technology into the strategies implemented for grow house energy management provides a more strategic, efficient, and cost-effective method of operation for cannabis cultivators. Meanwhile, the days of easy money are temporarily over, necessitating a precise investment approach. The upside is that implementing an effective Energy Management System can deliver a quick return on investment, thereby increasing the profits of every grower.
Learn More
As we’ve seen, the energy demands of cannabis cultivation are substantial, but so are the opportunities for improvement. This article begins to explore how cultivators can manage and reduce energy consumption. Stay tuned for the next article in this series, where we will dive into the technologies and services available to assist cannabis growers with energy management. We’ll also cover how these services can help with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and tax aspects of energy management.
If you are interested in learning more or need a consultation on managing energy consumption for your cannabis cultivation operation, feel free to contact us at info@safetynetamerica.com. Please include “Cannabis Energy Management Consult” in your message to ensure your query is directed to the appropriate expert.
Adopting these measures can reduce costs and enhance the sustainability and profitability of your cannabis cultivation business.
