Marijuana Business Magazine July 2018

savings from the air conditioners, which ran less because LEDs give off less heat. Justice acknowledges that LEDs are more expensive – a Fluence 660 is about $1,280, while a standard HPS light is around $400 – but the cost is more than outweighed by the energy savings and increased yield. Another advantage of LEDs:They allow growers to “double stack” a layer of plants on top of another one, effectively doubling the cultivation space. How? Because HPS lights are so hot, they must be farther from the plants than LED lights, which are cooler. “It’s like getting another facility for free. The ROI on that is a no-brainer,” Justice said, referring to return on investment. Following the successful tests, OutCo started retrofitting its facility for LED lights late last year, essentially interrupt- ing production for six weeks to tear out old benches and lights and install new rolling benches, irrigation, drainage, HVAC and other equipment. Since then, Justice and her team have harvested two crops each of several strains, including Mendo Breath, Cookie Pucker, Grape Pie, Strawberry Banana and Black Jack. “Yield and quality is phenomenal,” Justice said. “There’s always tweaking to do when you start something like this. Overall we’re very happy.” Other cultivators are also gaining confidence in LEDs. “I was a holdout because I never saw the production that I could get out of an HID (high-intensity discharge) with an LED.They are now rapidly catching up,” said Eli McLean, a cultivation consultant and commercial grower in Salem, Oregon. “Once you run the numbers, you realize that you get good yield of top-shelf can- nabis that cost me a third less to produce.” McLean is now researching LED lights with quantum dot technology that he said operate at about 91-92 degrees Fahrenheit.The lights are manufactured by a company called QD Grow. “This means you’ll need far less latent cooling because you have far less latent heat,” McLean said. “I think you can see sav- ings on your cooling costs of up to 65% for LED versus what’s being used today.” Make Your HVAC Less Power Hungry Finding ways to reduce HVAC power use is good for the environment – and your com- pany’s finances. Yerba Buena was able to get rid of its dehumidifiers, for example, which sig- nificantly reduced the company’s utility bills. How did the Oregon grower do it? It adapted sensors that measure leaf moisture and air humidity and wired them to activate air conditioners (which also perform dehumidification) when the leaf surfaces reach a certain moisture level. Remember that leaf surfaces can transpire moisture because of heat from grow lights. By activating air conditioners when leaves start to transpire – versus waiting for a preset interval – Rivero can both absorb air humidity and lower tempera- tures that had risen because of light heat. That, in turn, reduces leaf transpiration even more. By reducing overall plant transpira- tion, and more efficiently timing air con- ditioning use, Yerba Buena was able to regulate and reduce humidity, so it could be handled by air conditioning alone.The company ditched its last dehumidifier in February. “Our goal is to stabilize that humid- ity and heat. You need to pay attention to the leaf surface, because the leaf surface temperature is what’s going to allow that water to come out of the plant,” Rivero said. “The more sensing and control equipment you have that talks with HVAC and lighting together rather than separately, the easier it is to achieve that balance, as opposed to having those things separate and hope they line up.” Industrial operations in states where marijuana is legal paid an average of 14.89 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity in March – 15% more than the U.S. average of 12.99 cents. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, which provided the data, defines the industrial sector as “all facilities and equipment used for producing, processing or assembling goods” such as cannabis. Noncontiguous states Hawaii and Alaska pay among the highest electricity rates. Among legal MJ states, electricity for the industrial sector in Washington and North Dakota is among the cheapest per kilowatt hour. Electricity Prices for Industrial Operations 32.05 cents Hawaii 14.89 cents MJ-Legal State Average 12.99 cents U.S. Average 9.65 cents North Dakota & Washington SUSTAINABLE CULTIVATION July 2018 • Marijuana Business Magazine • 71