Somerset, MA – Fluence by OSRAM (Fluence), a global provider of energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial cannabis and food production, and Solar Therapeutics (Solar), an energy-independent cannabis dispensary, announced that the companies’ collaborative LED implementation yielded more than $1 million in total rebates from National Grid, Solar’s local utility provider.
Located in Somerset, Solar operates a 67,000sf cultivation facility and dispensary supplying medical and recreational cannabis products. Led by CEO Edward Dow, Solar uses green infrastructure and microgrid assets, and its unique facility design lowers its energy profile by 40% and its microgrid assets reduce remaining emissions by nearly 60%.
Solar’s microgrid generates approximately five megawatts of electricity – enough to power a small town – and its production architecture enables the facility to supply marijuana flower and marijuana-infused products throughout the entire state of Massachusetts.
Through its partnerships with Fluence and urban-gro, Solar has secured more than $1 million in rebates from its local utility provider and was the first facility of its kind to secure an LED rebate with National Grid. The rebates will ultimately cover costs for the implementation and use of automatic lighting controls, new HVAC equipment and boilers, and free fluid chillers.
“The lack of unified sustainability practices and principles within the cannabis industry have created some major efficiency pain points that we all need to seriously consider,” Dow said. “By leveraging Fluence’s LED technology, we were able to downsize our HVAC systems and invest the resulting savings into technologies that would allow us to achieve our long-term, sustainable facility design goals. Our partnership with Fluence has enabled us to bring this vision to reality and we can now redefine what it will take for the industry as a whole to become truly resource-efficient.”
