Sustainable Lighting in Cultivation

Josh Armitage

Commercial Account Manager

GrowGeneration

Lighting plays a starring role in the cannabis facility, from propagation to flower. For indoor grows, there is no growing without sole source lighting, while for greenhouses it supplements daylight, ensuring yield and quality consistency throughout the year.  Lighting discussions tend to revolve around technology: HPS vs. LED, CapEx vs. ROI, broad vs. narrow spectrum, passive vs. active cooling. 

While the technology discussion is important, the implications surrounding lighting and the impact it has on the broader aspects of a cultivation facility are equally critical. The role lighting plays as one system of many systems, its place in driving sustainability both energetically and in the health of the business, and how lighting standardization can drive operational scalability and consistency all need to be taken into consideration.

In the first SCC blog post, Ira Weinstein of CohnReznick wrote that sustainability has a number of definitions depending on the context. The common thread to these definitions is that sustainability requires us to look at the interrelationships of several systems  to understand their effect on the balance of the whole. This is the perfect lens to approach sustainability in lighting within cannabis cultivation

Making a lighting choice should be thought of not only as a single element of the cultivation facility but as a decision that has cascading effects on other systems. Lighting is one of the many components in a grow. As Niall McManus from Valiant points out, it's critical to think about these aspects up front and plan accordingly as it ultimately affects the infrastructure of the facility. For lighting, these choices extend to nearly all rooms and all stages of growth. 

Developing a sustainable lighting strategy involves accounting for all other system parameters. For example, growing at high PPFD (1000 umol/m2s and above) is gaining traction as cannabis is shown to be photosynthetically efficient at high light levels. However, if that lighting choice is not complemented by high CO2 concentrations, HVAC-D which scales to meet the fixture heat loss and appropriate fertigation there will not be a balanced environment. High PPFD without concurrently measuring  and executing the performance of the other systems will lead to lower than expected yields and a high dollar per gram production cost. The energy associated with that high PPFD will effectively be wasted, which does not further sustainable goals. 

Planning and informed input from lighting vendors, MEPs and horticultural experts in coordination with the other systems providers is crucial to balance these parameters when making a lighting choice regardless of technology.

Lighting constitutes roughly 30% of initial capital expenditure and 35-40% of electrical operating costs in a cannabis facility, which represent millions of dollars. As such, licensed producers must consider lighting as a critical line item in their capital and operational expenses and as a major factor in the sustainability of the business. There will be a greater initial outlay for LED lighting but reduced operational costs in the long-run, or reduced initial outlay through HPS but higher operational costs. Taking into account up front incentives offered by utilities can make sustainability and running a profitable business complimentary – an operator does not have to be cornered between sacrificing up front investment versus efficiency and energy savings. 

The 2020 State of Cannabis Lighting Market report points out, despite a majority of cultivators adopting LEDs and managing energy costs as pain points, only 19% of them made use of the incentives. To further energy and business sustainability, it will be critical to ensure that growers can have access to and utilize these incentives.

 As one thinks about a cultivation facility more broadly, it is a series of ‘inputs’ leading to an outcome, in effect a production process. Lighting is one of the inputs in the production process and is a prime candidate for standardization. Driving standardization of lighting systems within or across facilities (in the case of MSOs), can drive two outcomes which are complementary to sustainability: consistency and scalability. 

Variability of the cultivation systems and of the environment itself is reduced when lighting becomes standardized. In addition to ensuring consistency, standardizing lighting across facilities allows for scalability of the business. Systems become replicable, complexity decreases and further efficiencies such as volume pricing give a cultivation facility more leverage with its vendors. There may also be secondary benefits such as the ability to recycle or reuse equipment from one facility to another if needed.

In shifting the understanding and utilization of lighting from being a point solution to part of a system solution, operators will benefit by understanding the interrelation of lighting with HVAC-D, fertigation, cultivars, energy utilization and ultimately exposing the true cost of operating that system. 

The bottom line remains that until cultivation operators measure their success in terms of g/ft2/KwH the true measure of crop cost and value will remain both hidden and unsustainable.

For more information, please visit us at https://GrowGeneration.com