Cannabis Business Times in partnership with Fluence have released the 2025 State Of The Cannabis Lighting Market Report. The report describes a decade-long shift toward LED dominance in cannabis cultivation lighting, alongside growing sophistication in controls and a persistent focus on managing energy costs and crop quality. It positions LED-based, controllable systems as the standard for competitive, scalable cannabis production going forward.
Market evolution and LED adoption
The study tracks the market from 2016, when only a small minority of cultivators primarily used LEDs, to 2025, when roughly four out of five indoor and greenhouse growers report LED as their main lighting technology. This growth reflects both regulatory and economic pressures, as LEDs deliver significantly higher efficacy and longer lifetimes than legacy HID systems, lowering operating costs while supporting high-yield, high-quality production.
Energy cost management emerges as the top operational challenge, with a clear majority of respondents rating energy efficiency among their leading purchasing criteria for lighting. At the same time, the report notes that most growers view crop quality and consistency as equally critical, so any lighting investment must balance efficiency with spectrum, intensity, and uniformity that support premium flowering and predictable output.
Controls, dimming, and “dynamic” lighting
The research highlights rapid growth in lighting controls and dimmable systems, with most professional cannabis facilities now using at least some dimmable fixtures and many tuning output differently for vegetative and flowering stages. A substantial share of cultivators are exploring or planning “dynamic lighting” strategies—adjusting intensity and/or spectrum in response to plant stage, real-time conditions, or utility pricing—to improve results and mitigate energy costs.
The report emphasizes that modern cannabis facilities are increasingly data-driven, treating lighting as part of an integrated environmental and production strategy rather than a standalone purchase. The decade-long reporting serves as a benchmarking resource, allowing growers to compare their lighting technologies, design practices, and control strategies against industry norms, and to justify capex and retrofit decisions to investors and lenders.
Implications for vendors and growers
On the supply side, major horticultural lighting manufacturers use these findings to refine product portfolios toward higher-efficacy LEDs, robust controls integration, and support for dynamic recipes tailored to cannabis. For growers, the report underscores that staying competitive now depends less on simply “having LEDs” and more on optimizing fixture selection, layout, controls, and operating strategies to simultaneously reduce energy intensity and elevate crop production and quality.
The complete report can be downloaded here.
All images: cannabisbusinesstimes.com
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