Anyone who has been intimately involved in designing and building a commercial-scale cannabis cultivation facility knows the frustrations of grow light installation. Ballasts are prone to failure, produce excessive heat, and require extensive wiring. As almost all horticultural lighting comes with localized on fixture power, these frustrations are a near-universal experience.
Shouldn't the next evolution of grow room technology address these challenges?
Introducing TSRgrow Remote Power Server Technology. TSRgrow has finally solved grow light heat, clutter, and management concerns by moving the power supply out of the grow room. It's a revolutionary approach to horticulture lighting — and facility design.
The Benefits of Remote Power in Horticultural Lighting
Remote power technology removes the power source/driver from the individual light fixtures and centralizes it within the facility or server room. Server cabinets (similar to those you might expect from a large data center) house all the lighting power servers, centrally in the facility away from the lights to simplify installation, maintenance and operational control.
Experienced cultivators will immediately see the benefits of this cutting-edge technology. After all, many have experienced old school lighting systems for years - trying to get the excess ballast heat under control, dealing with limited dimming due to wiring requirements, and replacing failing ballasts/drivers.
But for the uninitiated, it is worth highlighting the benefits of remote power technology for cannabis cultivation.
Simplified Installation
From the very start, remote power technology eliminates the challenges commercial facilities face with installation. Just imagine a room outfitted with hundreds of lights. Traditional fixtures require separate 0-10V hardwired circuits for every single fixture, which adds significant cost to installations and limits the zones that typically are installed.
TSRgrow's advanced LED lighting reduces installation costs from between 10 to 15 percent simply by removing the need for added hardwiring of dimming wires from each LED light. Power and dimming are all managed in a centralized server control room. That translates into fewer wires running over and under canopy zones, reducing costs..
Reduces Fixture Weight
Have you ever considered the engineering needed to hang heavy ballast-laden grow lights safely? Conventional LED grow lights have a significant ballast component, adding unnecessary weight to the overarching grow room structure.
One grow light may not be a weight concern, but what happens when you need to hang a hundred—or five hundred? Why take the risk when technology now exists to reduce each fixture's weight?
Removes Source of Excessive Heat
Once installed and fully operational, grow room lights emit excessive amounts of heat. This is even more the case with LED grow room lighting with localized ballasts. Remember, it's not just the light itself that emits heat—it's also the power source.
Decoupling the power into a separate room eliminates the intense heat fluctuations from lights on and lights off. Gentler environmental fluctuation means your HVACD system doesn't have to work as hard, and your plants are immediately happier and your operational costs are reduced.
Reduces Utility Costs
Cultivators need to shave down costs with wholesale prices for cannabis flower bottoming out in mature markets. LED technology naturally reduces energy consumption over HPS lighting, between 40-50 percent.
While LEDs do naturally emit less heat than the HPS alternatives, in a commercial-scale grow room, even the reduced heat from hundreds of individual ballasts still adds up. You'll need a larger HVACD system to handle the environmental fluctuations. The end result is higher ongoing energy costs — month after month into perpetuity.
But what happens when you remove this heat source from the grow room? The remote power option developed by TSRgrow centralizes all the heat-producing ballasts into a small environmentally controlled server room that can be kept at a consistent regulated temperature. Your HVACD system will be under far less strain in the grow room, which means lower monthly energy bills and more uniform conditions.
Plus, energy rebates and incentives are often available for new LED installs or retrofits. Speak with us today to explore what rebates may be available in your state and for your grow room.
Pulls Maintenance Out of the Grow Room
If you haven't troubleshot a malfunctioning grow light ballast, you haven't truly experienced the reality of indoor cannabis cultivation. Tinkering with a dysfunctional ballast is one of the largest ongoing frustrations growers have, especially when it requires reaching over the canopy in the middle of the flower cycle to install a new ballast or remove a fixture because of a failed driver.
TSRgrow's remote power fixtures are revolutionizing the way growers do maintenance on grow room lights. Thanks to the innovative plug n' play slide-out modules, which are located in a separate room in server towers, nobody is reaching over the canopy to perform stressful repairs that bring opportunities for contamination.
Any required maintenance or servicing is immediately less labor-intensive and invasive within the grow environment.
Compatible with Solar and Battery Systems
Grow facilities will likely need to consider alternative power sources in the future. Due to rising energy costs, rolling blackouts, and consumer demand for environmentally friendly production, your facility may need fixtures that can adapt to more than one source of electricity.
Thankfully, our TGHV remote power servers can efficiently operate from regulated DC voltage. That means your new solar panels or battery storage system can directly power the servers — and the lights. To date, few horticultural lighting systems offer this integration.
TGHV remote power servers can be powered by regulated DC voltage, making it possible for solar and battery storage systems to directly power the remote power servers, a unique opportunity for sustainable power for growing
Total Zone Control
Finally, the combination of TSRgrow's remote power servers with our GROWHub software provides cultivators with precision control over all lighting conditions throughout the grow room — on a zone-by-zone basis.
It means it's possible to target parameters for specific genetics, with configurations best suited to each bench or rack.
This control is centralized through the remote servers and managed through an intuitive dashboard. Instead of struggling to manage the different needs of each zone within your space on a fixture-by-fixture basis, you have the power to strategically plan and monitor the conditions of each zone, and adjust based on strain response.
It's Time to Rethink Grow Room Lighting
TSRgrow's total grow room solution combining remote power server hardware with integrated GROWHub software eliminates the most common issues growers have with lighting.
No more tangled mess of wires crisscrossing the grow room, no more wild heat fluctuations, and no more attempts to troubleshoot a ballast over the top of your canopy.
The total system delivers superior lighting, power, data, and growth performance to elevate your production, potency, and profits.
With better control over the indoor environment thanks to zone control, heat-reducing remote power servers, and advanced grow room monitoring, you'll gain that competitive edge you need in an incredibly crowded market.
