Sometimes, we need to hear more about commitments and successes to really see that renewables and alternatives are here. These are viable, and in Virginia, they’re a vital part of the state’s energy future. Continue reading “Virginia Steps Forward: Carbon Neutral By 2050”
One of the most exciting elements of the new and growing cannabis industry is that we can build it right from the ground up. Around the country, more and more companies are seeking sustainable solutions to ensure a more responsible, competitive, and green future in the marijuana industry. Continue reading “Cannabis Industry Invests In Green From The Ground Up”
The climate is changing. With hotter summers, more storms, and rising sea levels, it’s going to take every tool in the book to adequately meet demand and avoid energy disasters. Businesses are working to increase energy efficiency, but from the supply side, more firms are offering demand response as yet another tool to change energy consumption. Continue reading “Demand Response Incentives: A Smart Way To Save Electricity”
Congress just opened the started gates for the cannabis industry. For years, cannabis businesses have largely relied on private funding and investing to grow their business. The lack of protection for banks severely stymied growth; those days are over. Continue reading “SAFE Banking Bill Moves Through House”
The East Coast has led the way in energy storage in the past few years and even a sky-high overview of some of its 2019 projects offer a way forward for other regions to follow suit.
It’s no surprise that states like New York and Massachusetts, home to massive populations and energy usage, have been pioneering the way forward in adding energy storage to its toolbox of answers for the future. One company, Nexamp, now holds the reins to 40% of the New York SUN project, a full 51MWh.
New York has committed to nearly $290 million in energy storage, with a goal of boasting a full 3 GWh by 2030. It’s an ambitious timeline, but with the right investment and technology, experts are confident that New York can get there on schedule.
The New York project is one of a half-dozen sites on the east coast that are pursuing energy storage applications on a grid scale. Massachusetts’ MA Smart is a similar project that is built around declining credits as energy needs are met and sustained. That effort will see the end of its first full year of operations on November 26 and will offer a glimpse of how such a scheme has impacted the energy needs of its users.
Energy storage is the ideal platform to add on renewable energy sources like solar and wind because it allows you to store excess production on your own terms, lowering your KWh rate on the grid and giving business more control with load shedding and dealing with peak demand. It’s one tool we’re excited to bring to companies looking to invest in themselves and in the future!
There are a lot of amazing things happening in the world of energy storage. Want to learn more about how Keen Technical Solutions can find the first answers to your energy environment? Give us a call and let’s get started.
Now it’s Out’n’Back season. This past Sunday, we had over 100 riders kick off the run-in to the Bell’s Iceman Cometh Challenge with bikes, brats, and a bit of pond jumpin’. Continue reading “Out’n’Back Season Kickoff: Thanks For Riding, Everyone!”
Cannabis is an industry that’s only just beginning. Earlier this month, the state of Illinois put standards in place that will shape the cannabis industry for the Midwest and the rest of the country for decades to come.
We’re living in extraordinary times. Cannabis is changing the country from medicine to production, with industrial giants and small-time growers all searching for some sense of direction. With states across the country passing legislation to allow legal adult use, the regulations have been relatively inconsistent.
Illinois is one of those states. With their marijuana law taking action On January 1, 2020, they’ve passed some of the tightest cannabis production legislation in the country, detailed regulations in energy consumption, water, and other aspects of production that demands a high level of efficiency from Day One.
There’s a lot at stake for the industry, and for the most part, cannabis growers are excited to take charge of their expansive energy footprint. A five thousand foot growing facility uses 66% more energy than the average US household. To offset that demand, Illinois is joining Massachusetts in passing strict energy regulations. These include:
The scale of Illinois’ cannabis industry is large and is expected to grow each year. Right now, they have 20 indoor facilities licensed for production, with a further 100 smaller producers with licenses to grow in facilities up to 5,000 square feet.
One of the most important parts of the legislation is that the law requires producers to explain in detail exactly how each grower will meet the standards of the law. It’s a process that demands an intimate knowledge of the complex systems in place, and a field we feel uniquely situated to support businesses tackle. With these regulations regarded as the new standard, we expect to see similar laws passed across the country, and we’re ready to support businesses everywhere.
Whether you’re looking to get started, upgrade your facility to meet regulations, or need help presenting your current HVAC to inspectors, we can help!
Waste is a problem as old as time; what we throw away, however, has changed in composition and toxicity over the centuries. Now, it’s becoming an emerging source of energy, and the future of waste as a power source is bigger than you think. Continue reading “Waste Not, Want Not: WTE Tech Grows In Asia”
The cannabis industry is one of the most intriguing opportunities in the country right now. Across the nation, more states are legalizing cannabis than ever before, giving producers a “green light” to go big. But in the race to scale up comes the hurdle of overcoming the big energy demands of indoor production.
Especially in states like Michigan, indoor production is going to make up a big chunk of the industry’s efforts to meet all-new levels of demand. With more production comes a larger supply, and prices have dropped accordingly. In addition to this new challenge, that extra production means energy costs go up, too. Roughly 63% of cannabis production is exclusively indoors, with a further 20% partially indoors, often for specific parts of the growth cycle.
That adds up to a lot of juice; in 2012, before many states introduced and passed legalization legislation, cannabis production made up 1% of the nation’s electrical demand. Every production facility has a sizeable footprint, with a national average of over 41,000 kwh per month for a 5,000 square foot indoor facility.
It makes a lot of sense that cannabis producers are preparing for both more energy costs and new tech; before they grow, they’re working with energy efficiency experts like Keen Technical Solutions to make sustainable practices as part of their blueprint. We’re working with companies across the Midwest to plug in renewable energy options like solar and wind power to support best practices developed by the industry. Every tool in our toolbox has a role in a cannabis facility, from HVAC to mechanical insulation, light fixtures to sustainable development.
We’re able to bring our decades of experience to a brand new industry. This is an incredible opportunity for us to support growers who are primed to reach all-new levels of production, but just as importantly, it’s a chance for us to help them do so with as little impact on our environment as possible. We all have something invested in the direction the cannabis industry takes right now; we’re ready to do our part with companies taking the forward-thinking route.
It’s a massive challenge, but a crucial one. Across the country and around the world, companies, cities, even entire countries are committing to getting to zero carbon emissions. Ranging from the ambitious to the outrageous, the timeline for those goals varies by decades, but the real question is how we plan to get there. It’s a race against time, against pollution, against resistance, and against significant technological barriers. It’s a race to zero. But how do we get there?
It appears there are two avenues, though both of them rely heavily on renewable energy as a crucial piece of their infrastructure. Some of those goals are specific in achieving carbon neutrality with renewables and energy storage alone, which would eliminate nuclear or biomass sources of electricity. That’s a key distinction, with various risks and inefficiencies of those types of energy production already controversial. This avenue puts tremendous pressure on renewable technologies not just to adapt and improve quickly, but to do so cheaply. While solar, wind, and other renewables have improved in leaps and bounds, they’re only now becoming reasonable options for consumers, especially at grid-level.
The other option is to include renewable options like biomass and nuclear energy as pieces to the energy puzzle, not only to meet specific timelines but as integral parts of the energy picture for decades to come. This relieves some pressure on renewables, allowing certain parts of the grid in place; think of it as starting a game of connect-the-dots with one corner already finished. However, support of nuclear power, in particular, is waning, and with geopolitical instabilities around all things nuclear more fragile than ever, it’s not a technology that can be fairly, safely, or equitably implemented around the globe.
So how do we get to grid-level renewable energy, which has a near-constant demand, with power generation that is variable at best? Both wind and solar electrical production peaks and dips according to the season, the time of day, even minute to minute; a passing cloud could affect solar, while gusting and becalmed times can have a huge impact on wind. The key, then, is storage, and storage that’s inexpensive enough to implement now.
That number isn’t exactly a mystery. MIT ran a study that put the figure at $20 per kilowatt-hour to make renewable energy and energy storage viable. The downside? That’s nearly half the rate these technologies can offer right now. Experts say that this figure may not even be possible by 2030, a full decade away. A big part of that forecast is that the study accounted for not just daily, weekly, or monthly fluctuations in wind and solar energy, but entire years and even decades; they aren’t building this model based on short-term changes, but for long-term peaks and valleys in energy consumption. In effect, they’re preparing for the worst-case scenarios, which would be extremely high demands (think six years of very cold winters and very hot summers, for example) with extremely low output from wind and solar.
It’s those ‘worst-case’ scenarios that skew the target kilowatt costs. The study pointed out that if we account for 95% of energy needs, opposed to 100%, then the target kilowatt-hour jumps to $150. Why does such a small change have such a big impact? Because that 5% accounts for astronomically small and rate weather patterns; it’s like saying we’re having the worst weather possible not just for a year or two, but for decades.
And that’s a big point to make; such gloomy weather forecasts are extremely unlikely. It’s also worth noting that these renewable energy sources are no different than fossil fuels and natural gas in one way; no source of fuel is perfectly reliable. Changes in access, production, and efficiency in oil refinement, for example, is why the cost of a barrel of oil can change drastically in a single day, and even more do over long periods of time. Historically, oil production has gone up, while the future only looks brighter for renewables. While scarcity and exhaustion mean oil will only ever costs more before it ultimately runs out, technology and efficiency improvements mean renewable energy can only get less expensive.
That brings us to another point to be optimistic. If you were to invest in the infrastructure of your business, your city, or your country, which would you back financially. Option one will only cost you more money over time and eventually run out, but it is cheaper now. Option two will only cost you less money over time and never run out, but costs more today. Anyone planning for the next decade and beyond will go for the second option, and that’s why the 2030 forecast for viable energy storage and renewable energy might not be as optimistic as it should be. Soon, the industry will have the type of investment and financial backing to make the types of strides we need to see to make it viable sooner, and that’s because it’s not just society that needs these changes, but the influential businesses themselves.
Will it take another decade to see renewable energy and energy storage take over? We don’t think so. Want to learn more? Give us a call and let’s talk about how you can create your own grid now and insulate your business from changing energy costs for years to come.
