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    KMB Design selected to engineer St. Louis Cannabis indoor growing site with CHP power

    Feb. 10, 2022
    For a 10,000 square foot indoor facility to run efficiently, growers should expect to use as much as 787 kW, including 160 kW for lights alone, according to KMB. The St. Louis Corp. site could be 10 times as big
    Image credit KMB Design Group
    Kmb Cannabis 62056789372d6

    A national cannabis company has chosen combined heat and power (CHP) for one of its large growing facilities.

    St. Louis Cannabis Corp. selected KMB Design Group to design and engineer the indoor growing site. The 100,000-square-foot production facility will include 30,000 square feet of canopy space and allow room for growth, the company said in its press release.

    Groundbreaking on the project is expected in April.

    KMB will incorporate CHP power equipment and technologies. St. Louis Cannabis Corp. chose the CHP route to maximize on-site power efficiency and utilize the heat from the power generation.

    KMB has led engineering and design work on other projects in the power generation, renewable energy and microgrid spaces. Contracting facilities include cannabis operations and data centers. The release did not detail the location of the coming indoor agriculture site. The city of St. Louis, meanwhile, legalized marijuana use in December.

    Indoor growers who utilize CHP generation can meet high-level electricity and heating needs with minimal energy waste, the company said. And one solution certainly does not fit all plants, it added.

    “For a 10,000 square foot indoor facility to run efficiently, growers should expect to use as much as 787 kW, including 160 kW for lights alone,” reads a company blog on the KMB website. “Now look at facilities that are 50K, 100K or even 125K square feet and you can see where problems may arise.”

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    The facilities can incorporate renewable energy resources and interconnect with the utility grid.

    Decriminalization of marijuana in numerous states have propelled the cannabis growing industry. Grand View Research has forecasted the legalized pot sector will total more than $70 billion in value by 2028.

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    (Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can reached at [email protected]).

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

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