Home About AE News & Events Blog Reducing CapEx and OpEx with Advanced Energy’s Power Conversion Solutions

Reducing CapEx and OpEx with Advanced Energy’s Power Conversion Solutions

Posted May 01, 2025 by Nate Mandelko

Blog Summary

• Centralized power sources for greenhouse lighting simplify installation, reduce fixture weight and cost, and minimize air conditioning needs, leading to both CapEx and OpEx savings.

• Traditional setups with numerous individual light fixtures generate significant heat, requiring extensive cabling and air conditioning solutions, especially in large greenhouses.

• Advanced Energy's solutions offer scalable centralized power options, enhancing efficiency and reducing costs for various greenhouse sizes, with products like the Artesyn LCM4000HV series providing reliable, flicker-free lighting.

Optimizing greenhouse lighting is essential for enhancing plant growth and controlling costs. Traditional setups often involve installing numerous individual light fixtures, each generating considerable heat and necessitating extensive cabling and air conditioning solutions.

Modern growers are increasingly turning to centralized power sources for their lighting needs. This approach simplifies installation, reduces the weight and cost of light fixtures, and minimizes the need for air conditioning by efficiently managing waste heat. By adopting centralized power solutions, growers can achieve both CapEx and OpEx savings while ensuring their greenhouses are equipped with reliable, efficient lighting systems.

Choosing the right approach to greenhouse lighting

Typically, a one-acre indoor greenhouse requires around 1,500 lights, each rated at 1 kW. The installation entails mounting each of these light fixtures to the roof and then running cabling to them. Even if each fixture is 95% efficient, it creates 50 W of heat per driver, or 75 kW for the whole installation. This equates to around 255,000 BTUs of heat energy per hour, which may be useful in winter, but would need to be addressed in summer, requiring around 20 tons of air conditioning capability to be installed and powered.

Increasingly, growers recognize the benefits of light fixtures powered from a centralized power source. The first benefit is simplicity. A centralized source eliminates the need for 1,500 separate LED drivers, reducing the size and weight of the light fixtures. This reduces capital expenditure (CapEx) as the light fixtures are less expensive, and being lighter, less roof strengthening is required. Additionally, smaller light fixtures block less natural light, meaning that less artificial light is required, which also reduces operating expenditure (OpEx).

In terms of efficiency, a centralized power supply operates at similar efficiency levels to the mains-powered light fixtures— approximately 95%. As the centralized power can be located on the periphery of the greenhouse, any waste heat can be vented outside during the summer months. This eliminates the need for air conditioning to remove heat, thereby reducing CapEx for the air conditioning and roof strengthening, as well as the OpEx required to operate it. Of course, during cooler periods, any heat from the power supply can be diverted into the greenhouse, providing warmth and reducing heating bills.

Solutions for centralized power within horticulture

Just as greenhouses come in many different sizes, so do the available power solutions from Advanced Energy, ensuring that there is an optimum product for every application. Advanced Energy provides scalable solutions, from single modules on single-phase power to larger setups with multiple modules on 3-phase power.

For example, for larger installations where more power is required, Advanced Energy’s Artesyn LCM4000HV series has been designed specifically to provide a centralized current source for medium to large scale LED lighting and horticulture applications.

Fig 1. LCM4000HV

The output of each 4 kW block provides up to 16 A of flicker-free current and up to three modules can be combined in a hot-pluggable LCM12K shelf for 12 kW of power. The single output voltage can be user adjusted over the range 100 VDC to 300 VDC with a 250 VDC nominal. Using a higher output voltage allows for lower cost wiring and higher efficiency as wiring losses are reduced. The output voltage can be configured with either an analog (1-10VDC / 0-24VDC) signal or via digital control for greater accuracy.

The unique single- or three-phase input design is compatible with all standard AC inputs from 208 VAC to 600 VAC at frequencies between 47 to 63 Hz. Inrush current on switch on is limited to < 60 A. When operating at full power the power factor is 0.98 and efficiencies can exceed 95%.

Advanced Energy offers flexibility in deploying the centralized solution. The LCM4000HV drivers can be purchased as a single module, a 12kW 1U shelf or as a turn-key solution. Advanced Energy’s LumaDrive™ turnkey systems offer solutions from 24kW up to 144kW to meet the needs of various facility sizes.

Clearly, with advanced power solutions available to cater to all sizes of greenhouses, and the significant benefits of centralized power (simplicity, lower roof load, no air conditioning), many users are moving to this approach to reduce their CapEx and OpEx.

For more information on Advanced Energy’s power solutions for industrial lighting, visit: Industrial Lighting | Advanced Energy.

Nate Mandelko

Advanced Energy

Nate Mandelko has been with Advanced Energy since 2012 and is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for Industrial Power Conversion Products