Grow-ops cause Pacific power blowouts

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Legal marijuana grow operations are putting such a strain on the power grid in Oregon and Washington states that they're blowing out transformers.

In a November Statesman Journal article, Portland General Electric spokesman Steve Corson estimated that the grow-ops account for 10 per cent of the roughly 400 transformer blowouts the Oregon utility experiences in a year.

The article also quotes Roger Blank, director of safety for Pacific Power, as saying a grow-op with four plants under standard lights "is like hooking up 29 refrigerators that run 24/7."

Corson told Portland Business Journal in November that the popularization of LED lighting, more expensive to install than traditional lighting, is easing the situation. One grower quoted in the story estimated that 200 lights per 10,000 square feet of an indoor operation would take US$10,000 a month to light by LED and double that amount by traditional light. BF