Photo: Nicholas Johansen

With several cannabis production facilities under construction or already producing in the Southern Interior, electrical utilities are having to cope with a very power-hungry industry coming online all at once.

FortisBC says it has received 17 inquiries for utility hookups to legal grow-ops in its service area this year so far, with a pair of activations already confirmed in the Kelowna area. The proposals range in power consumption from one to 22 megawatts.

For context, FortisBC’s Corra Linn Dam on the Kootenay River has a generating capacity of 51 MW.

Company spokesperson Nicole Bogdanovic said FortisBC will always be able to purchase extra electricity from the market to handle the jump in demand, but are actively working with cannabis companies in other ways.

“Because these facilities can be so energy intensive. Our first step would be to determine the feasibility of the location, so that means that we have to make sure that the power and the natural gas lines have sufficient capacity.”

While facilities in existing industrial areas — like the one at the old mill site in Okanagan Falls — will already have the infrastructure in place to serve them, many proposed for rural or agricultural areas “could require a lot of upgrades to bring that power.”

Bogdanovic said the infrastructure can always be installed, but it could come at a large cost to the bottom line of the project.

Many of the larger facilities in the South Okanagan have opted to rely on greenhouses to cut their power consumption, such as the plant being built in a rural area outside Kaleden by Green Mountain Health Alliance. Others, like one being built in the Princeton B.C. industrial park, are of a “bunker style” and rely fully on indoor lighting.

FortisBC is encouraging proponents to reach out to them early on in the planning stages so they can ensure the services can be provided at their proposed sites. The company is also helping firms reduce their electricity consumption by making lighting and other recommendations.

Bogdanovic said they haven't been treating this influx of industrial customers much differently than the rest of the industrial or agricultural sector.

“Growth is good, we are a business,” Bogdanovic said. “We want to assure any industrial customer that we can make this work for them. We live and work here too and want to advance the economy and will take the steps necessary to accommodate.”