Boulder company sheds light on energy-efficient means for pot growers

Boulderlamp CEO Fazle Quazi talks with visitors at his booth during the expo Friday. (Photos by Kathryn Scott Osler, The Denver Post)

At first, Fazle Quazi was wary of making lights for marijuana growers.

The founder of Boulderlamp Inc., which sells energy-efficient commercial lighting, said he was worried that doing business with weed vendors would tarnish the company's image among its core clients, including retailers and school districts.

But Quazi figured that if his company didn't make the lights, someone else's would.

Conventional grow lights aren't very efficient, and electricity brings an enormous cost of growing marijuana. A 2012 study in the journal Energy Policy estimated that growers nationwide spend $6 billion a year on electricity, and lighting is the biggest draw.

Alex Barondess, 16, watches his 12-year-old brother, Caelan, play "The Edge Energy Delivery Game" at the Enserca booth at the Colorado Energy Expo on Friday.

Producing the weed needed to fill a single joint has the same carbon footprint as running a 100-watt light bulb for 25 hours, the study said.

Boulderlamp, which had a booth at Friday's Colorado Energy Expo, says its ceramic metal halide grow lights use two-thirds less energy than traditional, high-pressure sodium lamps. This year, Quazi says, he's on track to sell about $2 million of grow lights.

"The cannabis industry is going to continue to take up more and more of the available power in this state and regionally," said Evan Anderson, owner of 14er Holistics in Boulder, who plans to buy and resell Boulderlamp lights. "It's a serious problem."

Dylan Donaldson, owner of Karing Kind dispensary in Boulder County, said he cut his power bills 15 to 25 percent by installing about 40 of the lights.

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Boulder company sheds light on energy-efficient means for pot growers