A typical indoor cannabis grow uses multiple lamps that each run on 600 to 1000 watts for the lamp plus 120 watts for the ballast, plus a load of fans, pumps, filters and even air conditioning to cool everything down. These attach to breakers that run on 120 or 240 volts and each of them draws from four to eight amps, depending on the voltage applied.
Multiply that by a bank of lamps and you see that you could run through hundreds of AMPS and kilowatts of energy, just to make up for what the sun and nature outdoors do for free: Illuminate and ventilate the crop.
And yet, many localities are requiring cannabis grows to be locked indoors as a security precaution, due to the high prices foisted on consumers by prohibition of the traditional market and taxation / regulation of the legal market. Underground growers often keep their gardens hidden this way.
Forcing growers indoors strains our electrical grid and adds to global climate change. A pre-publication assessment of regulatory policy surrounding energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions associated with indoor cannabis cultivation suggests an immediate change of course.
Read more at theleafonline.com