So this is crazy.

[motonoggin]

One of my partners went to a meeting the other day between the power company and stakeholders in the local township's medical cannabis industry. 

Turns out, we're the only grow project that's even close to up and running in the township. Trouble is, there's only enough power available for just the two buildings we have planned. That's all that's available in the whole township. That means no one else can start a grow. We're it for the foreseeable future. 

Power company can't really add any meaningful capacity without at least 3 years construction time and about $20million invested. Partner kinda felt bad for everyone else trying to get something going, we even had our own slide on the power point from the electric company lol. 

By that time, those who haven't built will probably have moved on. In the meantime, we can't expand past two buildings for 3+ years, which sucks. The alternative is to generate our own power. We figure one 2MW genset will run about 1000 lights maxed out. That's enough for about four buildings the same size as the one we have now (12,000 sqft, 200-250 lights). 

We figure can generate our own power for about half of what we can buy it for, so that cuts our cost to produce a pound by about $100. But a genset that big is probably about a half mil before switchgear. If we produce excess, we may be able to supply other grows if they're in close proximity, but that's probably a long shot.

It's quite an interesting problem. I feel pretty lucky that our team has their shit together and we did what we had to do to make sure we could stay working. 

@AKIQPilot you probably have worked with Nat gas gensets. Any advice you wanna offer? Investor has a bunch of 3516 Cat/Aerial compressors just sitting around that could be retrofitted with generators...

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by motonoggin

[Ez ryder]

how much led are you using ? 

[Ez ryder]

retractable roof panels for summer or straight up green houses for summer .

[Ez ryder]

if the only show in town money should be no issue in short order 

[Ez ryder]

also keep checking gsa auctions. gov 

I see huge generators pop up there a lot . that is one of those things that the avrage joe is not looking to buy and the large company's buying them for power have the money to go new,

[Momorider]

One 2MW genset would be a bad idea the retrofit a bunch option seems more logical  but you're a brain dead shitforbrains so you'll fuck it up no doubt  

[jtssrx]

Thats okay when bit Tobacco takes over pot all ovet the country you will get shut down by over regulation. 

[Jimmy Snacks]

When you are raking in all those profits while nobody else is able to I sure hope you plan on sharing the wealth.

[ArcticCrusher]

Why don't the others just sieze the means of production.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by ArcticCrusher

[ArcticCrusher]

4 minutes ago, Jimmy Snacks said:

When you are raking in all those profits while nobody else is able to I sure hope you plan on sharing the wealth.

[Snoslinger]

Wow, that sounds like an awesome  and lucrative business to be in, noggin. Your township must be pretty damn big if the possibility of other growers is there. Around here townships are very small and nowhere that I’ve lived had townships had their own power. Are most of your lights LED? I hear they do much better than previously. 

[Highmark]

5 hours ago, motonoggin said:

One of my partners went to a meeting the other day between the power company and stakeholders in the local township's medical cannabis industry. 

Turns out, we're the only grow project that's even close to up and running in the township. Trouble is, there's only enough power available for just the two buildings we have planned. That's all that's available in the whole township. That means no one else can start a grow. We're it for the foreseeable future. 

Power company can't really add any meaningful capacity without at least 3 years construction time and about $20million invested. Partner kinda felt bad for everyone else trying to get something going, we even had our own slide on the power point from the electric company lol. 

By that time, those who haven't built will probably have moved on. In the meantime, we can't expand past two buildings for 3+ years, which sucks. The alternative is to generate our own power. We figure one 2MW genset will run about 1000 lights maxed out. That's enough for about four buildings the same size as the one we have now (12,000 sqft, 200-250 lights). 

We figure can generate our own power for about half of what we can buy it for, so that cuts our cost to produce a pound by about $100. But a genset that big is probably about a half mil before switchgear. If we produce excess, we may be able to supply other grows if they're in close proximity, but that's probably a long shot.

It's quite an interesting problem. I feel pretty lucky that our team has their shit together and we did what we had to do to make sure we could stay working. 

@AKIQPilot you probably have worked with Nat gas gensets. Any advice you wanna offer? Investor has a bunch of 3516 Cat/Aerial compressors just sitting around that could be retrofitted with generators...

 

 

Sorry I just find these capitalism questions from you really fucking amusing especially when capitalism is needed to solve your power problems because govt can't.  This has to be the irony post of the century.   Thanks moto.  

Edited January 26, 2019 by Highmark

[ArcticCrusher]

46 minutes ago, Highmark said:

Sorry I just find these capitalism questions from you really fucking amusing especially when capitalism is needed to solve your power problems because govt can't.  This has to be the irony post of the century.   Thanks moto.  

It really is.  Perhaps he can use torches or candles.

[steve from amherst]

1 hour ago, Jimmy Snacks said:

When you are raking in all those profits while nobody else is able to I sure hope you plan on sharing the wealth.

He should be sharing the power. Cutting his production so others can share in the available power.

[snoughnut]

1 hour ago, Jimmy Snacks said:

When you are raking in all those profits while nobody else is able to I sure hope you plan on sharing the wealth.

He'll flip flop harder than a Carp out of water, he'll become an evil capitalist and berate the peasants on how they aren't tugging on their bootstraps hard enough.

[Garrettv]

You won’t produce power any cheaper ( not sure what your rates are) but running a genset flat out will incense maintenance cost and such, I know natural gas genset are real heavy maintenance wise and require top end rebuild some what frequeantly.  

 

 

[motonoggin]

6 hours ago, Ez ryder said:

how much led are you using ? 

None yet, we already own about 200 1000w hid lights so we're going to use them first.

2 hours ago, Snoslinger said:

Wow, that sounds like an awesome  and lucrative business to be in, noggin. Your township must be pretty damn big if the possibility of other growers is there. Around here townships are very small and nowhere that I’ve lived had townships had their own power. Are most of your lights LED? I hear they do much better than previously. 

We don't run any yet. We already had 200+ lights, but we have some friends downstate that are going to run them. We're waiting to see how they like them. We'll use them for veg, I'm sure, just not flower until we get more feedback from our associates. 

The township doesn't have it's own power, it's just that the supply for the township is short. It's one of the few jurisdictions in the area that are allowing licensed facilities to operate. The township itself is pretty poor, so they can use the revenue cannabis will bring. There's a ton of land here, just no power.

11 minutes ago, Garrettv said:

You won’t produce power any cheaper ( not sure what your rates are) but running a genset flat out will incense maintenance cost and such, I know natural gas genset are real heavy maintenance wise and require top end rebuild some what frequeantly.  

 

 

They do eat heads a little bit. If the gas is clean it's better. Our investor says he's produced power with ng gensets for about 3 cents/kWh on oil and gas projects. We're probably going to pay at least 7-8 cents from the grid.

[Snoslinger]

Well good luck. NY is starting to come around on legalizing it, finally. Wifey has been joking around about opening a grow lab. Not a bad idea really. Tons of money to be made on that business 

[BOHICA]

24/7 running a genset will be spendy.

Edited January 26, 2019 by BOHICA

[motonoggin]

8 minutes ago, Snoslinger said:

Well good luck. NY is starting to come around on legalizing it, finally. Wifey has been joking around about opening a grow lab. Not a bad idea really. Tons of money to be made on that business 

Labs are going to do well. We're paying about $500/sample for the state mandated testing.

1 minute ago, BOHICA said:

24/7 running a genset will be spendy.

There's really no alternative for at least 2 years, probably 3+.

 

[BOHICA]

31 minutes ago, motonoggin said:

Labs are going to do well. We're paying about $500/sample for the state mandated testing.

There's really no alternative for at least 2 years, probably 3+.

 

Scale back operation size.  You said they can run 2 buildings on the grid....  do that and then build the other 2 somewhere else closer to a substation or something.  Trying to generate power on fossil fuels in you situation is an extremely expensive solution.

does blow my mind that your area doesn’t have a couple of me capacity on the grid without having to do upgrades.  That is a system on the verge of collapsing.   Jesus this has to be National grids or a warren Buffet utility that this is on.

Edited January 26, 2019 by BOHICA

[motonoggin]

47 minutes ago, BOHICA said:

Scale back operation size.  You said they can run 2 buildings on the grid....  do that and then build the other 2 somewhere else closer to a substation or something.  Trying to generate power on fossil fuels in you situation is an extremely expensive solution.

does blow my mind that your area doesn’t have a couple of me capacity on the grid without having to do upgrades.  That is a system on the verge of collapsing.   Jesus this has to be National grids or a warren Buffet utility that this is on.

Yeah they've got stop work orders all over the area. It's Consumer's Energy.

The problem with moving closer is that we can't. All the areas with good power have banned licensed operations. 

Why do you think it would be expensive to generate our own? We figure we can cut our electricity bill in half if we do that. If it cost $1mil for a genset, it'd pay itself back in 2 years tops.  At this point it's easier to get natural gas than it is to get power. Are we missing something?

Edited January 26, 2019 by motonoggin

[Zambroski]

3 hours ago, Highmark said:

Sorry I just find these capitalism questions from you really fucking amusing especially when capitalism is needed to solve your power problems because govt can't.  This has to be the irony post of the century.   Thanks moto.  

Beat me to it.

1 hour ago, Garrettv said:

You won’t produce power any cheaper ( not sure what your rates are) but running a genset flat out will incense maintenance cost and such, I know natural gas genset are real heavy maintenance wise and require top end rebuild some what frequeantly.  

 

 

I was wondering the same.  I know some top end engineers that run ISO Powerlynx for Cat.  There is no cheaper way to run your own electricity than using a state/municipal source.

5 hours ago, jtssrx said:

Thats okay when bit Tobacco takes over pot all ovet the country you will get shut down by over regulation. 

Lotsa truth to this.  As soon as the big co's get all their bribes in order for DC, it's going to open up....legislation will crush many of the small shops.  The ones smart enough to make it through the first two years will be bought up by the big companies.  Those having to produce their own energy won't survive the initial start up phase.  Pot will be grown in abundance in the south. up through California with no need for lights.  Gonna be an interesting thing to watch.  Much like how tobacco worked out for the tobacco industry starting centuries ago.

History squared in the making here.

[Snoslinger]

3 minutes ago, Zambroski said:

Beat me to it.

I was wondering the same.  I know some top end engineers that run ISO Powerlynx for Cat.  There is no cheaper way to run your own electricity than using a state/municipal source.

Lotsa truth to this.  As soon as the big co's get all their bribes in order for DC, it's going to open up....legislation will crush many of the small shops.  The ones smart enough to make it through the first two years will be bought up by the big companies.  Those having to produce their own energy won't survive the initial start up phase.  Pot will be grown in abundance in the south. up through California with no need for lights.  Gonna be an interesting thing to watch.  Much like how tobacco worked out for the tobacco industry starting centuries ago.

History squared in the making here.

Holy fuck. Broski has some valid points for once

[motonoggin]

This would basically be municipal scale type generation. 2MW generators aren't exactly small. These are 16 cylinder Caterpillar motors. They're the size of a bus.