Abstract
The recent legalization of cannabis is facilitating very rapid growth in the cannabis cultivation industry, with the energy intensive indoor cultivation facilities becoming more prevalent. This presents a challenge to utilities as the high energy demand from this industry can overburden the existing utility infrastructure. Hence, from both planning and operational perspectives, it is crucial to understand the energy consumption of the rapidly growing load. This paper proposes a deterministic energy consumption model for indoor cannabis cultivation operations for the two major loads in these facilities, i.e., lighting and HVAC, over a 24-hour period based on equipment specifications and operational requirements of the facility. This model can further be used to estimate or forecast short-term and long-term energy demands and costs of indoor cannabis operation(s). The proposed model successfully simulated the environmental conditions in a real-world cannabis facility, and the model’s energy consumption output is validated using actual measurements taken from this facility as well as model output using GridLab-D.
Highlights
C ANNABIS cultivation is an energy-intensive sector and with the recent legalization of this industry, such as in Canada and a growing number of US states, the cannabis sector is growing very rapidly and so is the energy demand
In view of the above discussions, this paper focuses on developing a deterministic energy consumption model for indoor cannabis cultivation facilities accounting for the two major energy loads, i.e., lighting and HVACs
The objective of the energy consumption model is to determine the daily energy consumed by a given indoor cannabis facility to maintain the grow rooms within the specified temperature and relative humidity thresholds, based on the physical parameters of the grow rooms, lighting and hvac equipment specifications, and operational requirements
Summary
C ANNABIS cultivation is an energy-intensive sector and with the recent legalization of this industry, such as in Canada and a growing number of US states, the cannabis sector is growing very rapidly and so is the energy demand. In view of the above discussions, this paper focuses on developing a deterministic energy consumption model for indoor cannabis cultivation facilities accounting for the two major energy loads, i.e., lighting and HVACs. This paper makes a number of contributions. An energy consumption model for indoor cannabis facilities is developed and presented, considering the scheduling and operational requirements of lighting and HVAC equipment, respectively. The objective of the energy consumption model is to determine the daily energy consumed by a given indoor cannabis facility to maintain the grow rooms within the specified temperature and relative humidity thresholds, based on the physical parameters of the grow rooms, lighting and hvac equipment specifications, and operational requirements.
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