How to run a 430,000 square foot pharmaceutical grade medical cannabis greenhouse 365 days a year and 7 days a week using renewable energy to manage the risk of power outages.
That was the challenge faced by CannTrust, a Canadian leader in legal cannabis production, in its Niagara facility.
Three elements are essential to grow a plant in a hydroponic greenhouse: light to allow photosynthesis, heat for the harsh Canadian winters, as well as a pumping system to circulate the water necessary for life.
While electricity can support all three of these needs, it is much more energy efficient to do two things at once! The name of this technology is cogeneration also called CHP (cogeneration heat power), a combined heat and power system that, among other things, recovers heat from running engines to produce electricity and heat greenhouses.
Based in Toronto,Envest Corp. specializes in providing integrated, eco-friendly energy solutions. To do this, the company relies on cogeneration as well as on a successful 15-year partnership with the energy experts at Toromont Cat.
For the Ontario facility in Niagara, CannTrust had 4 Cat® G3520H natural gas generators installed in series. These produce both electricity and heat, which provides heat and light to the valuable plants in the greenhouse.
“As an islanded facility, maintenance and uptime are critical to our off-taker’s operations [...] The power quality received from the CHP is high quality and consistent, so much so that our off-taker is currently evaluating using the CHP for base load power supply going forward,” explains Jason Moretto, Envest's president and CEO. “In addition to providing low-cost electricity and offsetting natural gas consumption in the boilers, the CHP system also provides a reliable and stable source of electricity.”