Electricity use for indoor agriculture in Chatham-Kent is expected to grow by 455 per cent by 2024, according to new research by the Independent Electricity System Operator.

Indoor or covered agriculture includes vegetable greenhouses, the indoor and greenhouse cannabis sector and vertical farming.

The sector in Chatham-Kent used 69 megawatt hours of energy in 2018 and the IESO, an Ontario crown corporation, projects it will grow to 384 MWh in 2024.

Energy consumption in the local cannabis sector is also projected to increase by almost 500 per cent by 2024.

Terry Young, IESO vice president of policy, innovation and engagement, said the report is also meant to identify ways to work with greenhouses to become more energy efficient as this growth happens.

“We want to make sure that our service is as reliable as it can be, then Ontario industry, business, residents can count on electricity being there when and where it’s needed. We also want to make sure that affordability is a big part,” he said.

“If we can reduce the use, it means that we’re building less infrastructure in the future and it means that customers’ costs are lower than they may otherwise be.”

The study also included Essex County, Haldimand-Norfolk County and Niagara County.

The growth projections are based on input from an advisory group which included local utilities, Enbridge Gas, Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, Flowers Canada, and the Cannabis Council of Canada, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

“In terms of data collection and information used, there were focus groups with growers, survey of growers, facility walk-throughs, interviews with growers, data pulled from local utilities and provincial data,” IESO media relations supervisor Andrew Dow said in an email.

Across the whole province, energy use in the vegetables and fruits sub-sector is expected to increase by 282 per cent to 1.8 million MWh in the next five years, Dow said.

Energy use in the cannabis sub-sector in all of Ontario is expected to increase by 1,253 per cent to 1.25 million MWh. Dow said this is because only about 10 per cent of facility space is currently being used.

The report notes Essex County still has the largest footprint of greenhouses in Ontario, with 52 per cent of all greenhouse acreage. Chatham-Kent is the next largest region with 21 per cent.

Essex County’s energy consumption in the greenhouse sector is also expected to increase drastically by 2024.

Young said investing in LED lights is one way the organization is trying to prepare greenhouses for this high demand in energy.

“We will be working with them to try and see if there are things that they can do, whether they can shift their use of electricity, their different behaviours, but also different technologies,” he said.

“We want to make sure that we continue to work with this community to do that, to make sure that their electricity costs and their use of electricity … is as low as it can be.”

Other measures identified in the report include energy curtains, high-efficiency pumps, integrated environment controls, drip irrigation systems and high-efficiency circulation fans.