Utilities and grid operators worry about the impacts that energy-hogging marijuana will bring to their grids, and are excited about the profits they’ll bring to their bottom line.
The issue is pressing enough that it got its own session – “The Straight Dope on Energy & the Marijuana Industry” – at the Nov. 11 annual meeting of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners in Austin, Texas.
Attendees learned that Xcel Energy, which serves most of urban Colorado, sells some 300 gigawatt hours of electricity to pot growers per year, or enough to power some 35,000 homes. The U.S. marijuana-growing industry could soon buy as much as $11 billion per year in electricity.