
A budding opportunity: Energy efficiency best practices for cannabis grow operations
December 11, 2017
Authors
Neil Kolwey
The cannabis (marijuana) industry consumes enormous amounts of energy – an indoor pot grow uses 10 times the amount of energy per square foot as a typical office building – but it doesn’t need to be so wasteful. New technologies, better planning, improved local permitting and forward-looking utility programs could reduce the industry’s drain on the electrical grid (and, by extension, its share of greenhouse gas emissions). A just-published study from the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project, the region’s leading think tank on best energy efficiency practices, offers detailed recommendations based on recent engineering data and extensive conversations with cannabis experts.