In Baranoa, Colombia, a medical cannabis company has just launched a solar farm to power part of its own operation. The project, presented by the Ministry of Mines and Energy as the first initiative of its kind in the Colombian Caribbean, brings together 147 solar panels, self-generated energy and medical weed cultivation under one agroindustrial model.
More than a technological curiosity, the initiative points to a convergence the Colombian government is looking to push more emphatically: using clean energy to modernize agriculture, lower production costs, and decarbonize energy-intensive agroindustrial sectors. In this case, the test case chosen to showcase that vision was not cattle, coffee, or sugarcane: it was marijuana.
The company behind the project, Cannabis Medical Company, operates in areas including the cultivation of psychotropic and non-psychotropic medical cannabis, plant propagation, applied research, and production under pharmaceutical standards. Now, it is also looking to generate part of the energy needed to run those operations.
Medical Cannabis and Clean Energy: The Baranoa Experiment
Located in the Colombian Caribbean, Cannabis Medical Company installed a 105.1-kilowatt-peak (kWp) photovoltaic system designed to partially meet the energy demands of its agricultural and production processes through clean, self-generated power.
According to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the infrastructure includes 147 high-efficiency solar panels and is expected to generate approximately 178,670 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. That energy will be used to support part of the company’s agricultural, pharmaceutical, and processing operations.
As Minister of Mines and Energy Edwin Palma said in an official statement, “this is a project that requires a lot of energy, and in order to avoid the consequences of paying high bills and depending on the instability of the system, they decided to become independent and supply their own medical cannabis industry.”
In industries like medical cannabis, where energy costs can be significant —from …
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Author: Camila Berriex / High Times
