Lightshade, Resource Innovations, and Cascade Energy Work on New Cannabis Energy Program
April 29, 2021 
Lightshade, one of Colorado’s largest vertically integrated, independently owned-and-operated cannabis businesses, is working with the Resource Innovations and Cascade Energy to execute the Xcel Energy Strategic Energy Management Program.
This 18-month program will provide insight on how cannabis cultivation facilities use energy and ways to improve energy use practices. This Xcel Energy program was developed to build better strategic energy management (SEM) practices within businesses to create efficiencies as much as energy savings.
The program serves multiple purposes by enabling companies to reduce their energy costs and increase their energy efficiency, reducing the need for additional generating capacity, and lowering the energy company’s overall costs.
“This is the first cannabis strategic energy management program in the world,” says Dan Banks, Director of Cultivation Strategy at Lightshade. “Once the program is completed, we will have a better understanding of the ways we use energy across our facilities. We’ll uncover how we can use energy more efficiently and put that knowledge into practice. All of this will transfer into tangible monetary gains for Lightshade and energy reduction usage for the overall grid.”
Resource Innovations will act as independent energy management consultants who will complete an energy audit of participating businesses as a critical part of the research.
“Although our focus is on production, energy and how these two factors are tied together, we strive to make the examination as holistic as possible, looking at waste, water, energy, carbon, and a host of other factors,” says Jake Mitchell, a consultant with Resource Innovations who is managing the program for Lightshade. “Our biggest hope is that we leave the companies we work with a clear understanding of how to manage their energy usage both at a facility and production level. The largest goal of the SEM program is to build institutional knowledge of energy use at the managerial level to help them make good decisions moving forward.”
The SEM program will provide clear benefits to participants, including:
- Providing a clear pathway to improving the ratio of productivity to operational expense
- Arriving at conclusions that enable energy-intensive businesses to significantly reduce consumption, reduce their carbon footprint, and increase their sustainability
- Enhancing partnerships between energy users and their providers
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