MJBizMag August 2021 - 50

Business Under Fire
Powerful
Friends
M
arijuana businesses looking to
reduce their carbon footprints
can get help from a growing
number of diverse energy companies
that range from consultancies to publicly
traded utilities.
Consider Terrapin Care Station,
one of Colorado's largest vertically
integrated cannabis companies. It has
struck carbon-cutting partnerships with
Jack's Solar Garden, a community farm
that combines solar installations and
agriculture in Longmont, Colorado,
as well as Xcel Energy, the utility giant
based in Minneapolis.
Terrapin is one of roughly a dozen
cannabis companies enrolled in an
18-month strategic energy program
developed by Xcel and energy consulting
firms Resource Innovations and Cascade
Energy to teach businesses " strategic
energy management " practices that will
reduce their energy usage and costs.
The program begins with visits
from California-based Resource
Innovations and Oregon-based Cascade
Energy representatives who conduct
comprehensive energy audits of the
cultivation facilities, measuring how
much energy their lights, HVAC (heating,
ventilation and air conditioning) and
other equipment use, as well as how much
humidity is in the air because of plant
transpiration and other factors.
" A team comes into all of your grows
and does a top-down audit, " Terrapin
spokesman Peter Marcus said of cannabis
businesses involved in the program.
" They have their tools to measure. And
then it all goes into computer systems.
50 MJBizMagazine | August 2021
There's modeling that's done to identify
where you can save. And then, even
better, is they work with you and literally
hold your hand to get the rebates that
Xcel and others can offer you for making
switches (to energy-saving equipment). "
Making Changes
" In terms of the project costs, there are
incentives from the utility to encourage
the customer to get those projects done, "
said Jake Mitchell, a senior outreach
consultant with Resource Innovations
who is helping Terrapin with its energysavings
efforts.
The primary equipment that Mitchell
sees cannabis companies implementing
to create large energy savings are LED
Marijuana companies
partner with utilities
and solar gardens to
offset electricity costs
By Omar Sacirbey
Jack's Solar Garden in Colorado combines solar installations and agriculture to help companies
offset their carbon footprints. Courtesy Photo
lights, variable-frequency drives for
irrigation pumps and exhaust fans. He
added that companies often get rebates for
building automation systems to control
HVAC, dehumidification, lighting and
irrigation-although rebates are specific
to the projects at each individual grow.
" Not one project recommendation
that we do is the same for any two grows.
We calculate savings and then Xcel does
the incentives based on the energy that's
saved with that equipment or with that
process, " Mitchell said.
The consulting services come at a
discount and are paid for by a fund
to which the cannabis businesses
contribute. Mitchell said utilities such as
Xcel support the program because " it's

MJBizMag August 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of MJBizMag August 2021