Premium climate for your cultivation associations
CarbonActive creates the basis for high-quality flowers in your cultivation association – thanks to over 25 years of experience in the cultivation of cuttings, mother plants and flowers, mixed with our 20 years of experience in facility construction, we have spent the last four years designing what we believe to be the perfect cultivation room’s for small to medium-sized projects.
Our IGC solutions enable cannabis cultivation associations and growhubs to precisely control temperature, air humidity and CO₂ – all year round and efficiently, even with rising energy costs.
CarbonActive offers you two facility philosophies
From modular IGCs to customized large-scale systems – choose the right growth path.
Indoor Growing Compartment (IGC)
With the modular CarbonActive Indoor Growing Compartments (IGC), you can create maximum flexibility for your cultivation associations. The IGCs can be set up and dismantled quickly and moved regardless of location, offering you planning security even when conditions change.
Ideal for uncertain membership numbers or a limited budget.
Custom Facilities
CUSTOM FACILITY facilities are precisely tailored to your large-scale project. The integrated air conditioning system enables particularly low operating and investment costs, as the energy requirement can be flexibly adapted to the use of individual rooms. This concept is ideal for staggered operation of the flowering rooms.
Disadvantage: Central components must be designed for the final expansion from the outset.
System size in line with requirements
If it is already foreseeable at the start of the project that more than 825 members will be supplied with an average monthly requirement of 25 g per person, it is advisable to plan a custom facility. This allows you to reduce the investment costs per square meter of net cultivation area to a minimum.
For smaller or unpredictable membership numbers, we recommend the use of CarbonActive Indoor Growing Compartments (IGC). This allows you to adapt your production capacities flexibly and efficiently to growing demand.
Assumptions:
- 25g purchase quantity per member / month
- 500 g / m2 Yield
- 4.7 Passes per year
Utilize economies of scale:
- From 4 IGCs (35 m2 net cultivation area), a custom facility is already worthwhile in terms of costs
Scalable & high-performance - The IGC in detail
The IGC is CarbonActive’s solution for scalable, high-performance cultivation spaces. Every detail of the lighting, climate, tables, and ventilation is perfectly harmonized to maximize crop yield and quality.
Thanks to the standardized design, only minimal planning time and costs are incurred when installing an IGC.
The installation of an IGC only takes a few days.
Basic parameters:
- 35 m2 net cultivation area, customizable
- Roller tables depending on the specific room width
- 3 climate control variants selectable
- 50-60 m2 gross area
- Optimized lateral ventilation
- 2.8 m interior height
Implemented ready for construction:
- Door
- Switch cabinet
- Lateral ventilation
- Walls
- Ceiling panels
- Roller tables
- Lighting
- HEAT EXCHANGER
- OUTDOOR CLIMATE CONTROL UNIT
- Hot water tank
AHU includes:
- Pre-filter
- ENERGY RECOVERY
- Activated carbon filter
To be installed additionally:
- Irrigation
- Waste water management
YIELD PER SQUARE METER
Through more precise control of climate and air humidity – for example through dehumidification and cooling – a higher yield can be achieved throughout the year with the same strain on the same area, as constant conditions ensure optimal growth.
Number of members
A higher yield per square meter through optimized climate control makes it possible to cultivate significantly more plants on the same flowering area and thus meet the demand
of a larger number of
members reliably and
efficiently.
Active CO2 enrichment
All our IGCs have integrated CO2 enrichment so that the ventilation system can be kept closed during the initial weeks of the grow to maintain the air humidity in the room and still provide enough CO2 for healthy growth.
VENTILATION SYSTEM
The ventilation system is the central element of every IGC and ensures that contaminants do not enter the room and odors are removed in a controlled manner – for a clean, stable climate and discreet operation
in the indoor extension.
ENERGY RECOVERY
Over 80 % of the heat energy is recovered from the exhaust air and fed back into the supply air. The system therefore remains legally compliant, saves heating costs and ensures a stable indoor climate with minimal energy consumption even when the lights are off.
COOLING
a) Passive: When the outside temperature is low, the cultivation room’s is cooled energy-efficiently via the ventilation system.
b) Active: In hot weather, a powerful industrial air conditioning system in the AHU ensures constant conditions inside – regardless of the outside climate.
HEATING
Passive:
When the warm exhaust air leaves the cultivation room’S, the process heat it contains is transferred to the fresh supply air via a heat exchanger. This keeps the temperature in the room stable without having to use additional energy for heating.
Optional fan heater:
If the lighting in the cultivation room’S is switched off and less heat is generated as a result, a small fan heater can ensure the required temperature level. This can be connected directly to the IGC system and works particularly efficiently, as its heat is kept in the room thanks to energy recovery.
Active:
Integrated in our AHU (Air Handling Unit), the climate control facility can also actively heat. This is done much more efficiently than with conventional fan heaters by means of a heat exchanger. The active heating function is only activated at very cold outside temperatures – for example in winter or during long periods of darkness.
DEHUMIDIFICATION
Passive:
Energy recovery is also designed for dehumidification: Water is extracted as the exhaust air exits, which works particularly well when the outside air is cold and dry. For ideal results, the temperature and humidity of the outside air must match.
Optional dehumidifier:
If no integrated dehumidifier is installed in the AHU, an external device can also be used. However, this works less efficiently and usually results in higher electricity costs and greater climate fluctuations in the room.
Active:
The integrated dehumidifier in our AHU is designed to work particularly economically thanks to the existing process heat and cold. Thanks to the complete integration into our system, dehumidification takes place without fluctuations in the climate – evenly, stably and energy-efficiently.
Cost-effectiveness of CarbonActive IGCs in detail
As more constant or optimal climatic conditions can be created with increasing variants, the plants in the higher variants also have more opportunities to develop their yield potential. For example, the “Professional” variant is perfect for cultivation on rockwool using crop steering strategies thanks to its constant, low-fluctuation climate.
Since an IGC in the “Professional” variant costs almost twice as much as the “Basic” variant, we have created a financial model, taking into account production costs and other costs such as salary and rent for the dispensary, to show how the potentially
higher yields per m2 of cultivation area affect cash flow.
Taking into account that after the initial investment, the production costs for the production of the first batch must also be pre-financed, which further reduces the available capital, the investment in the high variants is amortized after just a few harvests. Thus, as long as the additional cannabis produced is sold, the payback periods of the individual variants do not differ greatly. Once the ROI has been reached, more efficient operation and lower operational costs in the higher variants will save further expenses and generate more income through higher yields, leading to higher operating results.
The right system for the temperate climate zone
Models from other regions of the world
In North America, closed cultivation systems are widespread. In Los Angeles, for example, high summer temperatures make cooling with outside air impossible, as the air is already strongly heated by the lighting. In Toronto (Ontario), it is cooler in summer, but the high air humidity makes dehumidification with outside air difficult. Thailand has also established itself as a cultivation hotspot: Tropical conditions with intense heat and high air humidity make climate control with outside air almost impossible there.
In addition, electricity prices in North America and Thailand are significantly lower at 8-11 cents per kWh than in Germany, where around 23 cents/kWh for industrial electricity is realistic. All these factors explain why closed systems make sense in these climate zones despite higher energy requirements – systems with supply and exhaust air tend to be the exception there.
Competitive advantage temperate climate zone
In Germany, on the other hand, the temperate climate offers ideal conditions for supply and exhaust air systems with energy recovery. For around eight months of the year, cool, dry outside temperatures enable efficient passive climate control. Even in summer, air humidity is often below 60 %, which means that stable operation is possible even then – especially with night lighting and robust strains. This is also demonstrated by European producers who have been working successfully with open systems for decades.
Project phases at a glance
The planning of a sustainable production facility is highly complex, as the regular European industry has often not yet been able to gain any applicable experience for the requirements of cannabis cultivation. Proper planning and installation of the individual components requires a great deal of intuition and passion for detail to ensure that the facility runs sustainably for many years without interruption. After all, even short downtimes can lead to costly failures, which can cause financial difficulties for companies.
With years of experience in facility design and the coordination of different trades, we always do our best to coordinate intersections with other trades, even beyond the barriers of our core competencies, and to recognize and prevent collisions at an early stage. Particularly in the case of custom facilities, sufficient time should be allowed for the execution of coherent planning and coordination of the installations.
Our IGCs have the advantage that they require less individual planning effort due to their high degree of standardization, which means that particularly urgent projects can be realised more quickly. We recommend that our clients obtain change-of-use permits in good time and initiate the building permit process at an early stage so that the building authorities do not stand in the way of time-critical implementation.
If a conversion permit has been issued, a facility consisting of IGCs can be set up initially at the “Basic” variant in a short time for very time-critical projects and upgraded to “Standard” or “Professional” as soon as the building permit for the installation of outdoor climate control units etc. has been issued.
With years of experience in facility design and the coordination of different trades, we always do our best to coordinate intersections with other trades, even beyond the barriers of our core competencies, and to recognize and prevent collisions at an early stage. Particularly in the case of custom facilities, sufficient time should be allowed for the implementation of coherent planning and coordination of the installations.
Our promise - your advantage
Certified security
All modules are CE and EMC compliant and fully meet European standards.
You receive a five-year guarantee including on-site replacement of all main components without surcharges.
All-round service
From initial consultation to commissioning, our team of experts is always ready to help you and your needs.
24/7 support, spare parts from stock and remote monitoring guarantee trouble-free continuous operation worldwide.
Hygiene protection
HEPA filters, UVC modules and closed surfaces reliably and permanently stop spores and pathogens.
Regular microbial tests document GMP-compliant purity for every batch of food without additional effort.
Energy guarantee
SemiLoop heat recovery saves up to eighty percent heating energy even in winter at full load.
Guaranteed consumption value per gram sustainably reduces electricity costs in a predictable way for long-lasting ROI.
We are here for you
Together we realize your cultivation project
- Get a thorough overview of our offer
- Pre-estimate budgets for financial plans
- Create liquidity planning
- Create room layout plan
- Evaluate upgrades to existing facilities
- Making regulatory assessments
- Determine cultivation methods
- Check business plans
Book an appointment with our expert Lorenz Minks as soon as possible.
