New York Cannabis Extraction and Processing Energy: Chillers, Ovens, and a Flatter Load

Why a New York lab's bill looks different from a grow's

OCM had issued 557 processor licenses by the May 29, 2026 Cannabis Control Board meeting, against 260 cultivators [ny-ocm-ccb-release-2026-06]. That ratio is unusual, and it means a lot of New York's licensed load is process equipment in leased industrial space rather than canopy under lights. The general extraction energy page covers the equipment; this page covers what that equipment does on a New York tariff.

The load has four parts:

• Chillers and cold traps. Hydrocarbon and ethanol systems need chilled solvent, often at minus 40 C or colder, and the chiller compressor is usually the largest single motor in the building. It cycles, so its demand contribution is spiky rather than flat.
• Vacuum ovens and decarboxylation. Resistive heaters holding 35 to 60 C for 24 to 72 hours per batch. Low power each, but many units running together add up, and they run through nights and weekends.
• Solvent recovery. Rotary evaporators and falling-film units combine a heater, a chiller, and a vacuum pump. Starting all three at once is the classic peak-setting event.
• C1D1 ventilation and makeup air. Explosion-proof exhaust fans run whenever solvent is present. In an upstate winter that means conditioning large volumes of makeup air at 6,001 heating degree days a year [noaa-cag-new-york]; downstate it means dehumidifying makeup air with dew points in the 60s F through the summer [noaa-cag-new-york].

None of this runs on a 12-hour photoperiod. A lab's profile is batch-driven: high for a run, low between runs, and rarely zero because ovens and freezers do not stop. The two things a tariff cares about are the average kWh, which the energy price handles, and the highest 15- or 30-minute interval, which sets the demand charge. For a lab the second number is the one to manage.

Which delivery class a processor lands in

Utility	Likely class	Trigger
Con Edison (NYC, Westchester)	SC 9 General Large	Any general-use account whose requirements exceed 10 kW; SC 2 General Small stops at 10 kW [coned-rates]
National Grid upstate	SC-2 Demand, then SC-3	SC-2 Demand once monthly use passes 2,000 kWh for four consecutive months while demand stays under 100 kW; SC-3 once demand exceeds 100 kW in each of the previous 12 months [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]
Central Hudson	SC 2 secondary measured demand (or the over-50 kW sub-rate)	SC 2 is split into non-demand, measured demand, measured demand over 50 kW, and primary measured demand; SC 3 is large power at primary voltage [cenhud-rate-codes]
NYSEG	SC-2 demand-billed or SC-3	Keyed to billing demand; thresholds not confirmed for this page

A small ethanol lab with one chiller and a few ovens can sit under 100 kW and spend years on National Grid's SC-2 Demand, where the delivery demand charge on the current service-rates page is $18.93 per kW [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]. At that rate, a single 40 kW startup spike above normal costs about $757 in a month, every month it recurs, before a single kWh is counted. That is the arithmetic behind staggering equipment starts.

Con Edison's SC 9 is the class almost every New York City lab is on, since the SC 2 ceiling is 10 kW [coned-rates]. SC 9 combines a customer charge, per-kWh delivery, and per-kW demand, and default-supply customers also pay a per-kW Demand Supply component alongside the Market Supply Charge [coned-rates]. A lab that leaves Con Edison supply for an ESCO stops paying that per-kW supply piece to Con Edison and starts paying whatever capacity arrangement the ESCO contract sets.

Scheduling process loads around the peaks

A lab has more freedom than a grow. Ovens do not care whether they start at 2 p.m. or 8 p.m. Solvent recovery can wait an hour. Chillers can pre-cool before a run. Used deliberately, that freedom does three things on a New York bill:

1. Cuts the facility peak. Sequence starts: chiller first, let it reach setpoint, then ovens, then the recovery skid. Interlocking the recovery pump so it cannot start while the chiller is in a pull-down cycle removes the worst coincidence. The peak demand vs peak usage page explains why a 15-minute interval matters more than an hour of runtime.
2. Cuts the NYISO capacity tag. Capacity in New York is locational, and the downstate localities (Zone J, Zone K, the G-J locality) price far above upstate [nyiso-markets]. A downstate lab's share of that cost follows its demand during the system's peak hours, which fall on summer weekday afternoons. Moving batch starts to evenings in July and August lowers the number an ESCO uses to price capacity for the following year.
3. Improves the shape an ESCO sees. Suppliers quote a flat load closer to wholesale. A lab that can show twelve months of interval data with modest peaks and steady overnight ovens is a better credit than one with a sawtooth.

One caution on the last point. C1D1 exhaust cannot be scheduled; it runs whenever the room is in use. Treat it as base load and schedule everything else around it.

A worked example: mid-sized hydrocarbon and ethanol lab

All inputs below are assumptions. Assume a processor in leased industrial space with:

• One 30 kW low-temperature chiller running 60 percent of the time during an 8-hour shift, 20 percent overnight.
• Twelve vacuum ovens at 1.5 kW each, 18 kW total, running 70 percent of hours.
• A falling-film recovery skid at 25 kW (heater, chiller, pump) running 4 hours per shift, 5 shifts a week.
• C1D1 exhaust and makeup-air conditioning averaging 20 kW around the clock.
• Freezers, lighting, and office at 12 kW average.

Monthly kWh: chiller (30 x 0.6 x 8 + 30 x 0.2 x 16) x 30 days = 7,200 kWh; ovens 18 x 0.7 x 720 = 9,072 kWh; recovery 25 x 4 x 22 shifts = 2,200 kWh; ventilation 20 x 720 = 14,400 kWh; other 12 x 720 = 8,640 kWh. Total about 41,500 kWh a month.

Peak demand if everything starts together: 30 + 18 + 25 + 20 + 12 = 105 kW. With sequenced starts so the recovery skid never overlaps chiller pull-down, a realistic peak is about 80 kW.

At New York's June 2026 commercial average of 23.56 cents per kWh [eia-epm-5-6-a], 41,500 kWh costs about $9,780 a month all-in. The difference between an 80 kW and a 105 kW peak is 25 kW; on National Grid SC-2 Demand at $18.93 per kW that is about $473 a month in delivery alone [ngrid-upstate-service-rates], and it also decides whether the account crosses the 100 kW line that starts the twelve-month clock toward SC-3 [ngrid-upstate-service-rates]. In Con Edison territory the same 25 kW shows up on both the SC 9 delivery demand line and, for default-supply customers, the Demand Supply line [coned-rates].

A lab's power factor deserves a look too. Chiller compressors, vacuum pumps, and drives are inductive, and a lab with many motors and few resistive loads can slide below the power factor floor in a large-general tariff. Capacitor correction is cheap relative to a recurring penalty.

How the state's rate structure treats a flatter load

New York default supply is priced off NYISO day-ahead market results and changes every month [coned-rates]. That is fine for a load that tracks the market, but a lab with overnight ovens consumes a lot of off-peak energy that the utility's class-average load shape does not credit. An ESCO can. With interval data, a supplier can price the lab's actual hourly shape, which is one of the few cases where a processor gets a structurally better number than the utility rather than just a different one.

Contract structure follows from the shape. A lab with predictable base load (ovens, freezers, ventilation) and variable batch load (chiller, recovery) fits a block-and-index contract: fix the base block, float the rest. Because the lab is on a demand class, the 2019 Reset Order's restrictions on mass-market products do not apply, and the ESCO can offer any of those structures [ny-psc-reset-order-2019]. The order limited only what may be sold to residential and small non-residential accounts [ny-psc-reset-order-2019].

Efficiency programs that apply to labs

Con Edison's Commercial and Industrial program covers chillers and refrigeration, motors, variable frequency drives, and compressed air, with a Custom track for process improvements, a 50 percent project cost cap, and mandatory pre-approval [coned-ci-program]. A chiller upgrade or a VFD on the makeup-air fan is squarely in scope. National Grid upstate's Large Business program pays for facility upgrades and new equipment, and its demand response programs pay customers to curtail; a lab that can pause ovens for an event is a natural participant [ngrid-upstate-ee].

Processors in neighboring states face similar equipment and different tariffs. See Massachusetts extraction for the ISO New England version and Pennsylvania extraction for a PJM grower-processor market where the lab often shares a meter with the grow.