Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
CANADA - QUEBEC: Billionaire Project In Saint-Bruno
This project is extremely interesting because it combines data centers with greenhouses. As you may know, data centers produce huge amounts of heat
Editor’s Note: This project is extremely interesting because it combines data centers with greenhouses. As you may know, data centers produce huge amounts of heat. In the cold climate of Quebec, greenhouses could use some more heat. It will be interesting to watch this project develop, and see if this new model for using waste heat to help grow food year-round is viable!
Martin Bouchard, the founder of the Copernic search engine and the 4Degrés data centers, wants to eventually build at least three high-intensity data processing complexes including the recovery of thermal waste. The total estimated bill will be around 5 billion.
Is the plan complicated? To put this into words: artificial intelligence, innovation, circular economy, high capacity computing servers, clean energy, greenhouse production, food autonomy; stir calmly and you will obtain the successful project on which Mr. Bouchard and his associates Vincent Thibault and Dany Perron have been working for three years.
The Quebec government is receptive to this project, La Presse has learned. The role of the monopoly of electricity distribution is essential since such a data center dedicated to artificial intelligence consumes twice as much energy in a year when compared to a city the size of Drummondville.
Construction has started on the first campus located in Lévis. Completion is scheduled for November 2022. The daily Le Soleil described the main features recently. QScale is planning a second branch in the Ecoparc de Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, on the South Shore of Montreal, just behind the commuter train station.
“Saint-Bruno would be half the size of that of Lévis, our flagship. Ultimately, our vision is to be present in the main regions of Quebec.”
— MARTIN BOUCHARD
The unveiling of financial and strategic partners will be done soon. “We would like to make an announcement in the next few months, if not the next few weeks. We are going to announce our plan to become the world's top 3 in computing. We must have our food autonomy, but also our calculation autonomy, ”emphasizes Mr. Bouchard.
The serial entrepreneur, along with private investors, invested 30 million to start the project. The rest of the financial package will be revealed at the time of the official announcement. "We are working very hard to ensure that the ownership of the company remains entirely in Quebec. "
We are talking about big bucks: from 2 to 3 billion for the Lévis complex, 1 billion for the Saint-Bruno complex.
What is it about?
QScale aims to be a data processing campus with high computational density. Campuses seek to meet the needs of machine learning, the demand for which is growing with the arrival of artificial intelligence in enterprises. Consider the data calculations required to safely move autonomous vehicles forward. Mr. Bouchard cites Tesla, Volkswagen, Pfizer, and Goldman Sachs as potential customers.
“Compared to what you would find in a conventional data center, our fridge-sized server cabinets will have five times the processing capacity. It's going to heat up even more, ” notes the 48-year-old entrepreneur. Quebec has the advantage of having clean and cheap energy.
This type of infrastructure is only just beginning to emerge in the world.
“There is not yet a leader in high density processing. Americans like Colovore, in Santa Clara, and ScaleMatrix, in San Diego, are powered by fossil fuels, without heat recovery, and with high electricity costs. We will be at least 10 times bigger than them only with Lévis.”
— MARTIN BOUCHARD
The business plan provides for the recovery of heat released by servers to heat agricultural greenhouses.
"We want to contribute to the food self-sufficiency of the province with a potential of 400 hectares of greenhouses just for the first campus," he insists. However, all greenhouse vegetable production is currently grown on 123 hectares. "For this component, we are in discussion with several players," says Mr. Bouchard. Consultant for Savoura, André Michaud confides that he has never been contacted by QScale. He said he was puzzled when he learned about the outline of the project.
"We have a greenhouse robotization project using artificial intelligence to potentially automate physically demanding jobs," retorts Mr. Bouchard. In Lévis, we have adjacent farmland which is equivalent to the equivalent of 80 football fields, enough to produce 2,880 tonnes of raspberries and 83,200 tonnes of tomatoes. "
That's not all. Mr. Bouchard wants to add to these complexes an innovation zone specializing in artificial intelligence. “The AI Zone is the missing link between basic AI research and its application in manufacturing companies. "
IQ analyzes the file
The pharaonic project has appeared on the radar screen of the Legault government. "We heard about it," said an unnamed government source. It’s an interesting file that is being looked at.
It is at Investissement Québec (IQ) that the file is analyzed. The state's financial arm was on the list of organizations QScale wanted to solicit, after being listed in the Quebec Lobbyists Registry.
As for electricity, "we already have agreements with Hydro-Quebec. Everything is in order. They are very happy. I cannot disclose anything, it will be announced. It’s very large, ”says Mr. Bouchard.
It is the user-pays principle that applies when the promoter of a project wants to have access to the Hydro-Québec network. QScale's land is conveniently located near high-power substations.
For data centers, hydro rates typically start at 4.04 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) when the economic development rate applies. If applicable, the price is 5.05 ¢ / kWh.
CONTENT AND IMAGE SOURCED FROM LA PRESSE
Lead photo: QScale has started construction of the first high-intensity data processing complex in Lévis. Completion is scheduled for November 2022; Image sourced from QScale
June 3, 2021
WRITTEN BY:
ANDRÉ DUBUC, AND
JULIEN ARSENAULT
MIT Engineers Have Discovered A Completely New Way of Generating Electricity
A new material made from carbon nanotubes can generate electricity by scavenging energy from its environment
By ANNE TRAFTON
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
JUNE 7, 2021
MIT engineers have discovered a way to generate electricity using tiny carbon particles that can create an electric current simply by interacting with an organic solvent in which they’re floating. The particles are made from crushed carbon nanotubes (blue) coated with a Teflon-like polymer (green). Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT. Based on a figure courtesy of the researchers.
Tiny Particles Power Chemical Reactions
A new material made from carbon nanotubes can generate electricity by scavenging energy from its environment.
MIT engineers have discovered a new way of generating electricity using tiny carbon particles that can create a current simply by interacting with liquid surrounding them.
The liquid, an organic solvent, draws electrons out of the particles, generating a current that could be used to drive chemical reactions or to power micro- or nanoscale robots, the researchers say.
“This mechanism is new, and this way of generating energy is completely new,” says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT. “This technology is intriguing because all you have to do is flow a solvent through a bed of these particles. This allows you to do electrochemistry, but with no wires.”
In a new study describing this phenomenon, the researchers showed that they could use this electric current to drive a reaction known as alcohol oxidation — an organic chemical reaction that is important in the chemical industry.
Strano is the senior author of the paper, which appears today (June 7, 2021) in Nature Communications. The lead authors of the study are MIT graduate student Albert Tianxiang Liu and former MIT researcher Yuichiro Kunai. Other authors include former graduate student Anton Cottrill, postdocs Amir Kaplan and Hyunah Kim, graduate student Ge Zhang, and recent MIT graduates Rafid Mollah and Yannick Eatmon.
Unique properties
The new discovery grew out of Strano’s research on carbon nanotubes — hollow tubes made of a lattice of carbon atoms, which have unique electrical properties. In 2010, Strano demonstrated, for the first time, that carbon nanotubes can generate “thermopower waves.” When a carbon nanotube is coated with layer of fuel, moving pulses of heat, or thermopower waves, travel along the tube, creating an electrical current.
That work led Strano and his students to uncover a related feature of carbon nanotubes. They found that when part of a nanotube is coated with a Teflon-like polymer, it creates an asymmetry that makes it possible for electrons to flow from the coated to the uncoated part of the tube, generating an electrical current. Those electrons can be drawn out by submerging the particles in a solvent that is hungry for electrons.
To harness this special capability, the researchers created electricity-generating particles by grinding up carbon nanotubes and forming them into a sheet of paper-like material. One side of each sheet was coated with a Teflon-like polymer, and the researchers then cut out small particles, which can be any shape or size. For this study, they made particles that were 250 microns by 250 microns.
When these particles are submerged in an organic solvent such as acetonitrile, the solvent adheres to the uncoated surface of the particles and begins pulling electrons out of them.
“The solvent takes electrons away, and the system tries to equilibrate by moving electrons,” Strano says. “There’s no sophisticated battery chemistry inside. It’s just a particle and you put it into solvent and it starts generating an electric field.”
“This research cleverly shows how to extract the ubiquitous (and often unnoticed) electric energy stored in an electronic material for on-site electrochemical synthesis,” says Jun Yao, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who was not involved in the study. “The beauty is that it points to a generic methodology that can be readily expanded to the use of different materials and applications in different synthetic systems.”
Particle power
The current version of the particles can generate about 0.7 volts of electricity per particle. In this study, the researchers also showed that they can form arrays of hundreds of particles in a small test tube. This “packed bed” reactor generates enough energy to power a chemical reaction called an alcohol oxidation, in which alcohol is converted to an aldehyde or a ketone. Usually, this reaction is not performed using electrochemistry because it would require too much external current.
“Because the packed bed reactor is compact, it has more flexibility in terms of applications than a large electrochemical reactor,” Zhang says. “The particles can be made very small, and they don’t require any external wires in order to drive the electrochemical reaction.”
In future work, Strano hopes to use this kind of energy generation to build polymers using only carbon dioxide as a starting material. In a related project, he has already created polymers that can regenerate themselves using carbon dioxide as a building material, in a process powered by solar energy. This work is inspired by carbon fixation, the set of chemical reactions that plants use to build sugars from carbon dioxide, using energy from the sun.
In the longer term, this approach could also be used to power micro- or nanoscale robots. Strano’s lab has already begun building robots at that scale, which could one day be used as diagnostic or environmental sensors. The idea of being able to scavenge energy from the environment to power these kinds of robots is appealing, he says.
“It means you don’t have to put the energy storage onboard,” he says. “What we like about this mechanism is that you can take the energy, at least in part, from the environment.”
Reference: “Solvent-induced electrochemistry at an electrically asymmetric carbon Janus particle” by Albert Tianxiang Liu, Yuichiro Kunai, Anton L. Cottrill, Amir Kaplan, Ge Zhang, Hyunah Kim, Rafid S. Mollah, Yannick L. Eatmon, and Michael S. Strano, 7 June 2021, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-23038-7
The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and a seed grant from the MIT Energy Initiative.
Ontario Greenhouse Installs Combined Heat Power
"We look forward to expanding our energy-efficient and sustainable system"
With the demand for greenhouse-grown produce continuing to increase, DelFrescoPure is consistently looking for ways to become more sustainable. "Ensuring high-quality produce is available year-round. Implementing a Cogeneration power plant is the most efficient way to achieve that goal," they say. As of fall 2021, DelFrescoPure will be increasing their pre-existing Cogen system by 6.5 MW, for a total of 10+ MW across their facilities.
Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the onsite generation of electricity from the use of natural gas. The byproducts of CHP are the heat that can be stored and used to create the desired microclimate within the greenhouse and CO2 that is used to fertilize the crops. The CHP units will additionally produce the electricity required to power the grow lights as well as the mechanical load of the facility. While electricity generation alone is typically 40% efficient in converting fuel to power, adding heat recovery to the equation can bring that efficiency to 90%, a reality that suits greenhouses well.
Year-round production
DelFrescoPure intends to use the electricity to power the lights at Via Verde Hydroponics. These grow lights allow for an extended growing season, making produce that would originally be grown in the summer available all year round. The heat harnessed by CHP will also be recycled to heat the greenhouses and meet all daily power needs. Being able to produce electricity more cost-effectively onsite also means DelFrescoPure does not have to worry about voltage fluctuation from the area maxing out the local grid. With electricity no longer being a concern DelFrescoPure is primed and ready for the 25-acre expansion currently underway.
“DelFrescoPure is excited to increase our Cogeneration Power units. We are very pleased to be working with Martin Energy again to install the new CHP technology and solutions they offer. The results from using the Cogeneration technology over the past three years have been great. We look forward to expanding the system so we can continue to provide fresh produce all year long.” said Carl Mastronardi, President of Del Fresco Produce.
Along with the financial benefits, CHP power is better for the environment. This method ensures that fewer resources are wasted and required to produce electricity. The extended growing season also reduces our carbon footprint by decreasing the need for local retailers to import high milage commodities. DelFrescoPure is taking a sustainable approach to providing consumers with the freshest items possible. CHP is perfectly suited for the greenhouse environment since it is able to harness all three attributes of the technology (electricity, heat & CO2). DelFrescoPure® will never have to worry about where their energy is coming from and can continue to expand as market demand increases.
For more information:
DelFresco Pure
www.delfrescopure.com
CANADA: Quebec AI Processing Centers To Heat Gigantic Greenhouse Complex
A Quebec City entrepreneur, well known in the field of technology, is piloting a pharaonic project. Workers are working quietly on a large plot of land in Saint-Nicolas. The value of the total investment is in the billions of dollars
A Quebec City entrepreneur, well known in the field of technology, is piloting a pharaonic project. Workers are working quietly on a large plot of land in Saint-Nicolas. The value of the total investment is in the billions of dollars. And it would be only the first of a series of "campuses" at the cutting edge to be built on Quebec soil. And, there's greenhouses in it.
Developer Martin Bouchard, founder of the Copernic search engine and then of the 4Degree data centers, wants to build at least three high-intensity data processing complexes with thermal waste recovery, to which would be added a pole of applied innovation in artificial intelligence. The total estimated cost is close to 5 billion euros. Why that could be relevant for the horticultural industry? The business plan calls for the recovered heat being used to heat greenhouses. "We want to contribute to the province's food autonomy with a potential of 400 hectares of greenhouses for the first campus alone," he tells in an article on LaPresse.
Put the words artificial intelligence, innovation, circular economy, high-capacity computer servers, clean energy, greenhouse production, food autonomy; stir calmly and you will obtain the "Baiejamésienne" project on which Mr. Bouchard and his associates Vincent Thibault and Dany Perron have been working for three years on the QScale project.
QScale is a high-density data processing campus. The campuses seek to meet the needs of machine learning, which is in growing demand with the arrival of artificial intelligence in businesses. Consider the data calculations required to safely drive autonomous vehicles. Bouchard cites Tesla, Volkswagen, Pfizer and Goldman Sachs as potential clients.
The serial entrepreneur, along with private investors, has invested $30 million to start the project. The rest of the financial package will be revealed at the time of the official announcement. "We are working very hard to ensure that the ownership of the company remains entirely Quebec-based. "
The Quebec government is receptive to the project, La Presse has learned. Hydro-Quebec would have already said yes, assures Mr. Bouchard. The imprimatur of the monopoly of electricity distribution is essential because such a data center dedicated to artificial intelligence consumes twice as much power in a year as a city the size of Drummondville.
Construction has begun on the first campus located in Levis. Delivery is scheduled for November 2022. The daily newspaper Le Soleil recently outlined the project. QScale is planning a second branch in the Écoparc de Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, on Montreal's South Shore, just behind the commuter train station.
With the heat, greenhouses are to be heated. "We want to contribute to the province's food autonomy with a potential of 400 hectares of greenhouses for the first campus alone," he insists. However, all the vegetable production in greenhouses is currently grown on 123 hectares. "We are in discussion with several players for this part of the project," says Bouchard. André Michaud, a consultant for Savoura, says he has never been contacted by QScale. He said he was puzzled when he saw the project outline.
We have a greenhouse robotization project using artificial intelligence to eventually automate physically demanding jobs," says Mr. Bouchard. In Levis, we have the adjacent farmland that corresponds to the equivalent of 80 soccer fields, enough to produce 2880 tons of raspberries and 83,200 tons of tomatoes. "
4 Jun 2021
VIDEOS: A Made-In-Canada Clean Energy Solution Wins Multiple Awards For Innovation
The Eavor-Loop is a closed system within which a proprietary working fluid is contained and circulated
Eavor’s technology consists of several Patent Pending innovations. The Eavor-Loop is a closed system within which a proprietary working fluid is contained and circulated. The working fluid is not fluid from a reservoir flowing into our wells, it is a fluid added to the closed-loop Eavor-Loop™ to create an efficient radiator, much like a vehicle radiator circulates fluid in a closed-loop to remove heat from a gasoline engine.
Eavor-Loop™ harvests heat from deep in the earth to be used for commercial heating applications (ex: greenhouses or district heating) or to be used to generate electricity using conventional heat to power engines. Eavor-Loop™ is an industrial-scale geothermal system that mitigates many of the issues with traditional geothermal systems, which rely upon using wells to produce brine from a subsurface aquifer.
The closed-loop is the key difference between Eavor-Loop™ and all traditional industrial-scale geothermal systems. Eavor-Loop™ is a buried-pipe system, which acts as a radiator or heat exchanger. It consists of connecting two vertical wells several kilometers deep with many horizontal multilateral wellbores several kilometers long. As these wellbores are sealed, a benign, environmentally friendly, working fluid is added to the closed-loop as a circulating fluid. This working fluid is contained within the system and isolated from the earth in the Eavor-Loop™. The wellbores act as pipes, not wells producing fluid from the earth.
The working fluid naturally circulates without requiring an external pump due to the thermosiphon effect of a hot fluid rising in the outlet well and a cool fluid falling in the inlet well. The working fluid contained in this closed-loop pipe system brings thermal energy to the surface where it is harvested for use in a commercial direct heat application or converted to electricity with a power generation module (heat engine).
Unlike heat pumps (or “geo-exchange”), which convert electricity to heat using very shallow wells, Eavor-Loop generates industrial-scale electricity or produces enough heat for the equivalent of 16,000 homes with a single installation.
An excellent new video by CNBC entitled 'How Geothermal Energy Could Power The Future' features Eavor CEO, John Redfern and several others in the modern geothermal industry such as Catherine Hickson of Geothermal Canada, Tim Latimer of Fervo Energy, Cindy Taff of Sage Geosystems and Joe Scherer of GreenFire Energy.
The video covers topics such as:
- What is Geothermal energy?
- Geothermal startups gain traction
- Major opportunity for oil and gas
- The future of geothermal
"Miles below the Earth’s surface, there’s enough thermal energy to power all of humanity for the foreseeable future. It’s called geothermal energy, and it’s poised to play an increasingly large role as a source of always available, renewable power. Now, there are a number of startups in the geothermal space, working to figure out how to access this heat in difficult-to-reach geographies, at a price point that makes sense. And it’s even gotten the attention of oil and gas industry giants, who are interested in greening their portfolios while sticking to their core competencies - extracting energy resources from deep within the Earth."
Strategic Partnership Between Oreon And Enersavings, Inc.
The energy savings possibilities of Oreon’s LED grow lights made EnerSavings recognize the advantages of the sustainable water-cooling technology
IJsselstein, 4 May 2021. Oreon and the Canadian company EnerSavings Inc. have come to an agreement for a strategic partnership. EnerSavings is a leader in customized lighting retrofits throughout Canada with a presence in 7 provinces. As a lighting engineering firm, they continuously work on improvement and innovation. EnerSavings expertise in providing the most sustainable and energy-saving solutions to its customers, fits perfectly with the sustainable water-cooling technology of Oreon’s LED grow lights.
Energy saving solutions
In EnerSavings, Oreon sees a strong partner for the Canadian market. EnerSavings is based in Toronto, Ontario, and has over a decade of experience in the ever-increasing market demand for efficient lighting technologies. The energy savings possibilities of Oreon’s LED grow lights made EnerSavings recognize the advantages of the sustainable water-cooling technology. They see lots of opportunity for growers in the fixture’s high efficiency and the ability to reuse the gained heat and save on cooling costs. The active water-cooling makes it possible for the LED fixtures to efficiently produce a large amount of light without heating up the greenhouse or grow facility. Revenues are increased by lowering operating costs, and growers get full control over the climate in their facility. This results in high-quality yields year-round.
"EnerSavings is excited to partner with Oreon and expand its presence in the North American LED plant grow light market. The Oreon water-cooled fixture is by far the best grow light in the market today, bringing the highest value proposition to growers. Oreon was the first to bring an LED grow light to market in 2009 and its fixtures are the best built, and cheapest per micromole. The water-cooling ensures productive longevity second to none. The first install over a decade ago still has over 90 percent light output today!" – Jason Beer, Business Development Director of EnerSavings.
“With EnerSavings Inc. as a new dealer, Oreon creates a better connection to the Canadian market. Both Oreon and EnerSavings share the fact that we are both committed to providing sustainable LED solutions and tailored energy-saving solutions, so customers can reduce operating expenses and increase profits. With the expertise of EnerSavings in commercial horticulture projects, we see a promising future in this rapidly growing market,” says Bill Whittaker (North-American Sales Manager) of Oreon.
![Vertical Farms vs Greenhouses: Energy and LED Costs And Differences [Part 2 of 5]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/57c8695d5016e11e71be1d83/1615337195881-9949W7G4WYZHR08W8UW3/Screen+Shot+2021-03-10+at+1.40.08+AM.png)
Vertical Farms vs Greenhouses: Energy and LED Costs And Differences [Part 2 of 5]
Lighting is one of the biggest expenses for a vertical farm, for obvious reasons – each layer in the farm needs its own LED “suns.” Agritecture Designer, a consulting software created by Gordon-Smith’s company, estimates the need at roughly 10 LEDs per square meter
Part 2 of 5] This is the second post in a 5-part series on the differences between vertical farms and greenhouses, and the considerations that will help farming entrepreneurs decide which is right for their situation.
Last week, in the first article of this series, we discussed the basic differences between vertical farms and greenhouses, including why location is such an important factor in the decision. In short: The location of a farm governs how much space will be available for it, and the source of the energy it will use.
That last part is what you might call “the elephant in the room” when it comes to indoor farming: Energy demand, and the main reason we care about it – carbon emissions. So let’s talk about that today.
Carbon Footprint Factors: Electricity (But Not Only)
One of the leading critiques of vertical farming is that replacing natural sunlight and open-air with LED bulbs and climate control requires electricity – lots of it.
“If the source of the energy is not renewable,” points out Henry Gordon-Smith, the CEO of Agritecture, an independent consultancy that helps clients decide between vertical farms and greenhouses, “Then vertical farms have enormously more carbon footprint than greenhouses.”
But the opposite is also true – where renewables are available, vertical farming can greatly reduce the carbon footprint of foods that are normally trucked long distances, or flown in from overseas.
For example, “Norway could be huge for vertical farming, because they just have so much cheap, renewable energy,” Gordon-Smith suggested.
When you tally the emissions reductions from shorter transport distances, the reduction in fertilizer use (fertilizer production is highly carbon-intense, and Controlled Environment Agriculture uses it much more efficiently than outdoor farms), plus the reduction in food waste, it’s clear that artificial light and conditioned air inside vertical farms are not the only carbon footprint factors to consider.
Bringing the Sun Indoors: Changing Electricity Costs for Farms
Lighting is one of the biggest expenses for a vertical farm, for obvious reasons – each layer in the farm needs its own LED “suns.” Agritecture Designer, a consulting software created by Gordon-Smith’s company, estimates the need at roughly 10 LEDs per square meter.
That’s a useful figure to get started, but given the variability between types of LEDs, a more precise estimate would be about 100 watts of LED power per square meter, according to Gus van der Feltz, another CEA industry expert. Van der Feltz is a co-founder and Board Member of Farmtech Society in Belgium, and project leader for Fieldlab Vertical Farming in the Netherlands.
With these lamps operating 12 to 18 hours a day in most vertical farms, the power usage from LEDs accounts for 50 to 65% of the electricity bill.
The exact amount depends on several factors: The relative efficiency of the LEDs used, compared with the efficiency of other systems in the farm (such as climate control), as well as the light requirements of each individual crop. (For example, the total electricity required for growing light-loving strawberries in an iFarm, for example, is about 117 kWh per month for each square meter of growing space, while arugula needs only about 52 kWh.)
But whether you opt for a greenhouse or a vertical farm, you’ll be growing local produce, which means your farm may be eligible for subsidies or another form of reduced electricity rate. Be sure to check with your local government and electricity providers.
It’s also important to note that greenhouses increasingly rely on LEDs as well, especially during winter in northern climates.
This may be only supplemental light, and it will vary with the location, seasonality, and how much light each crop requires – but greenhouses are still not as energy-intensive as vertical farms.
“It takes a lot of energy to produce food (with vertical farms),” says Ramin Ebrahimnejad, vice-chair of the Association for Vertical Farming, and an expert on multiple types of urban farming.
“But,” he adds, “most vertical farms in the developed world already use renewable energy. In the long term, that’s not going to be a challenge for the industry”.
As our electricity sources become more renewable (and as LED technology improves, as we’ll discuss below) energy-intense vertical farming will become both more sustainable – less carbon-intense – and more affordable.
And we can see this evolution happening in real-time: In 2020, Europe produced more electricity from renewables than from fossil fuels for the first time.
The Cost of LEDs for Vertical Farms vs Greenhouses
LEDs themselves are another major OpEx factor in vertical farming. And even though the cost per bulb varies widely, along with the efficiency, the LEDs in a vertical farm generally have to be replaced every five to 10 years, according to the Agritecture Designer software.
However, just as the cost and carbon footprint of electricity are becoming less of a hurdle for indoor farms, the LED situation is also evolving quickly.
An idea that’s become a modern certainty is that technology gets cheaper over time. As the environmental economist William Nordhaus studied in the 1990s, the declining cost of light over the centuries – from candles, to oil lamps, to ever-more-efficient light bulbs – has been changing the world and fueling innovation for millennia.
Something similar is happening with LEDs – up to a point. Moore’s Law famously predicted computing power doubling every year, and Haitz’s Law now forecasts that the cost per lumen for LED light will fall by a factor of 10 each decade, while the light produced increases 20-fold.
However, as Van der Feltz points out, this cannot continue forever and is more limited by the laws of physics than Moore’s Law. Currently, a well-designed horticultural LED system can be up to about 55% efficient – meaning 55% of the energy put in becomes photons, which plants use to grow, and 45% becomes heat. Fifty-five percent efficiency is already impressive when compared with incandescent light bulbs, for example, where energy input produces 5% light and 95% heat.
But still, for the purpose of CEA and especially in vertical farms, the remaining 45% of the energy that becomes heat is often – though not always – useless.
“In greenhouses,” Van der Feltz explains, “the additional heat is typically not all bad. Especially since auxiliary greenhouse lighting is mostly used in the darker and cooler winter months, and there are usually plenty of options for ventilation in case it gets too warm.”
But vertical farms heat up quickly, and as closed systems where opening a window is not an option, any extra heat from LEDs must be balanced with air conditioning or creatively repurposed. Van der Feltz says some indoor farms have been designed to divert excess heat to warm an adjacent building, for example.
So LED performance can still improve marginally, but not exponentially. Van der Feltz says experts estimate that another 25% efficiency improvement is possible, but LEDs will never be able to produce light energy out of thin air.
Whatever the limits of Haitz’s Law, it’s still true that while electricity and LED light bulbs are the most expensive part of a vertical farm today, they’re also the area where improvement is most imminent. (Innovation, and the laws of supply and demand, are constantly bringing down the costs of both, regardless of how much efficiency improvement is still technologically possible.) So operating a vertical farm should still become increasingly affordable over time.
Improved technology and reduced costs for LEDs are especially good news for the potential to grow even more crops in vertical farms, as different plants use different parts of the light spectrum.
iFarm is already a leader in the industry when it comes to research and development for expanding the crop selection available to vertical farmers. As LED technology improves, we’ll be able to take those efforts even further.
Other Energy Costs: Climate Control Needs in Vertical Farms vs. Greenhouses
The high energy costs of lighting a vertical farm are obvious, but the demands of climate control are often not as clear.
Since vertical farms are closed systems, with little to no air exchanged with the outside, they must be constantly cooled and dehumidified. About 20% of the electricity used on a vertical farm is for air conditioning, while dehumidifiers account for 10%.
The need for both of these increases with each layer added to a vertical farm, in order to counter the effects of plants transpiring and increasing the heat and humidity of the system.
In temperate regions, greenhouses can save energy by using natural ventilation, as the Agritecture Designer program explains: Sidewalls can roll up to allow cool air in, while hot air escapes through vents at the top of the greenhouse. Greenhouses can also opt for an evaporative cooling system, which is still more energy efficient than a fully climate-controlled system but does add humidity – another element to be controlled.
But it’s also important to remember that greenhouses are more sensitive to outside temperatures, and therefore, the operational expenses of climate control and/or the time needed for crops to mature will vary more than they will with vertical farms – especially in cold, Northern climates.
Next, in Part 3, we’ll discuss additional cost considerations for vertical farms and greenhouses, beyond electricity.
To learn more about starting a profitable vertical farming business, reach out to our friendly team at iFarm today!
Learn more
09.03.2021
Pilot Project To Recycle Crypto Mining Farm Energy Waste Into Energy For Greenhouses
The pilot project's objective is to address concerns about the excess energy waste generated by crypto mining facilities while also supporting the government's objective to become more self-sufficient in food production, rather than relying on imports
Genesis Mining has announced the launch of a new pilot project that will focus on recycling excess energy waste from crypto mining facilities into sustainable heat and energy to power greenhouses.
The pilot project's objective is to address concerns about the excess energy waste generated by crypto mining facilities while also supporting the government's objective to become more self-sufficient in food production, rather than relying on imports.
Commenting on this potential, Mattias Vesterlund, Senior Researcher at RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden), said, "A 1 MW data center would have the ability to strengthen the local self-sufficiency up to 8% with products that are competitive on the market."
The project is a private-public partnership between Systemair, Lulea Technical University, RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden), Boden Business Agency, the local Boden municipality, and Genesis Mining's philanthropic arm, Hashpower For Science. It's located in Boden, Sweden, and has been in development for over one year.
Boden Business Agency's Nils Lindh, said, "This project is exciting because there is an opportunity to contribute in scaling up the food industry and at the same time meet the national energy efficiency targets. It's the first of many projects within the Energy Symbiosis, and hopefully, the results will show that it's very possible to scale up into large commercial production."
For the initial pilot project, one of Genesis Mining's custom-built crypto mining storage containers will be placed near the greenhouse. The greenhouse and container are connected via a custom-built air duct system that carries the excess energy directly from the crypto mining storage container into the greenhouse.
Andreas Johansson, a Senior Lecturer from Lulea Technical University, who is making the calculations for designing the system for air flow from the datacenter to the greenhouse, said, "For the cold climate in the north of Sweden, our calculations show that a 300 m2 greenhouse can easily be heated with a 550 kW container, even with outdoor temperatures reaching almost -30℃. But the potential is much bigger than that. The temperature difference over the greenhouse is in this calculation only 10 degrees since we assume a DC output temp of 35℃ and a GH temp of 25℃. If the DC output is increased to 55℃, then the GH area can be tripled to 900 m2."
Genesis Mining's CEO and co-founder Marco Streng said, "Crypto mining is the backbone that makes decentralized cryptocurrencies and applications possible, and we strongly believe the benefits of this decentralization will transform the world, but all those benefits can't come at the cost of the environment."
As one of the world's largest crypto mining companies with over a dozen data centers spread across the globe, Genesis Mining's R&D team has been actively working on different solutions and collaborations to enable more sustainable crypto mining facilities.
"Genesis Mining has always preferred locations that offered 100% renewable energy sources, that's why we've focused so much on the Nordics. But as the industry leader, we view it as our moral and ethical responsibility to push the industry forward, and finding a way to convert our excess energy has been a major priority. We look forward to scaling this project and bringing it to not only more of our own datacenters — but to others as well."
USA: Indoor Growers Wanted For CEA Survey
"The current step in our research plan is to verify the details of this chart with peer growers worldwide via a survey", explains research associate Wythe Marschall. "It invites indoor farm managers to tell us how important each skill is, and how frequently it is conducted
A Cornell team is leading a new project to investigate how Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) compares to conventional field agriculture in terms of energy, carbon and water footprints, profitability, workforce development and scalability. Strategic FEW (food, energy, water) and Workforce Investments to Enhance Viability of Controlled Environment Agriculture in Metropolitan Areas is funded by a three-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, through its new funding initiative called Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems.
The workforce development research, led by Professor Anu Rangarajan (Director, Small Farms Program), consisted in 2018 and early 2019 of interviews and an intensive two-day workshop with industry experts. During that workshop, a focus group of indoor farm operations managers produced this chart detailing the duties (responsibilities) and tasks (activities, skills) that describe their work.
Survey
"The current step in our research plan is to verify the details of this chart with peer growers worldwide via a survey", explains research associate Wythe Marschall. "It invites indoor farm managers to tell us how important each skill is, and how frequently it is conducted. The survey can be completed anonymously, or growers can provide us with their names and emails to receive a $25 Amazon gift card as a token of our appreciation."
To take this survey, register here. The Cornell team will send a survey link directly from Qualtrics. Respondents may provide their names and emails to receive a $25 Amazon gift card as a token of appreciation.
Online workshops
"We are also interested to ask growers if they would be interested in a series of upcoming online workshops to help us detail what specific, teachable steps (activities) are contained within each important skill needed by indoor farm operations managers", Wythe adds. "For example, we'll ask growers to dive into the specific skill, 'Manage crop fertigation (e.g., mixing nutrients, monitoring pH, monitoring water temp),' breaking this down into teachable, specific components.
"This series of workshops will be compensated, and we are beginning to schedule it now. Any CEA farm manager is invited to participate, regardless of location or modality."
For more information about this study regarding the future of the CEA workforce, please contact project lead Anu Rangarajan (ar47@cornell.edu) or research associate Wythe Marschall (wmarschall@fas.harvard.edu).
Publication date: Tue 9 Jun 2020
Microgrids, Indoor Agriculture Go Together Like Peas And Carrots
In the last year and a half, Schneider has announced deals with Fifth Season and Bowery Farming, two vertical farming startups
Friday, March 6, 2020
Bowery FarmingBowery Farming is one of two vertical farming startups that has signed an energy as a service arrangement with Schneider Electric and Scale Microgrid.
Plant factories may be the technology we need to feed a growing and warming planet.
The operations, which have no access to natural sunlight and grow plants in vertical rows, are designed to be incredibly efficient. They require 95 percent less water and 99 percent less land than conventional farms while growing leafy greens with scientific precision without pesticides. Because of their small physical footprint, vertical farms also can produce food close to the urban areas where it will be consumed, reducing the need for transportation and logistics.
The tradeoff: Indoor agriculture demands a staggering amount of energy. Lights run 16 hours a day and facilities require impressive HVAC equipment, reaching an energy intensity per square foot that surpasses datacenters. The energy load varies greatly depending on the size and type of operations, but it could be between 500 kilowatts and 15 megawatts — more than a retail box store and less than a data farm.
Schneider Electric sees an opportunity here. The international service provider has identified indoor agriculture as one of the four major drivers that will increase electricity consumption in the next decade (the others being the electrification of heat, electric vehicles and data centers).
In partnership with Scale Microgrid Solutions, Schneider is extending its energy-as-a-service model to indoor agriculture companies. Under the arrangement, Scale finances, builds and maintains an onsite microgrid and sells the energy to the off-taker — in this case, indoor farming startups.
In the last year and a half, Schneider has announced deals with Fifth Season and Bowery Farming, two vertical farming startups.
Shutterstock
Three reasons microgrids are well suited to meet indoor farming’s blooming energy demands
1. Microgrids can help grow operations get online faster
Many facilities aren’t equipped to meet the electricity demands of an indoor agriculture operation. Upgrading the facility could take anywhere between six months and a year and a half and could cost millions of dollars, according to Mark Feasel, president of the smart grid at Schneider Electric.
"These are not trivial loads," Feasel said in a phone conversation. "There may or may not be the capacity on the grid to handle these loads, especially as you move towards metropolitan areas where electrical distribution can be constrained."
Not only can the upgrade take a lot of time, it can be really expensive. Depending on the utility, there may need to be ecosystem studies and a grid feasibility assessment, along with a slew of technical and environmental regulations that can slow the timeline and increase costs.
2. It’s on-brand
On-site electricity generation is kind of like harvesting your own energy to grow your own plants. It’s a technological intermediary between the sun and photosynthesis. Because microgrids can run in island mode, this adds resilience to operations.
Microgrids also can provide lower-carbon energy. Running an operation off dirty energy would take a bite out of the startup’s sustainability proposition. After all, it seems silly to burn fossil fuels to create artificial sunlight.
Schneider and Scale’s microgrids use a combination of solar and natural gas, which the company says is cleaner than the grid electricity. The company is exploring ways to have completely clean microgrids, but there are space constraints for the number of solar panels needed for the energy intensity of plant farms, Feasel said. One farm likely would need many multiples of surface area to meet the demand inside the building, which may be difficult in urban areas.
3. Energy-as-a-service offers price certainty
Energy represents a major line item for indoor agriculture, accounting for 30 to 50 percent of the operational expenses at a plant factory. That’s according to unpublished research conducted by Centrica Ventures’ Logan Ashcraft, XENDEE’s Zachary Pecenak, Energy Impact Partner’s Shayle Kann and Kale Harbick from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
With Schneider and Scale’s energy-as-a-service model, the startup will know the cost of energy in the future, making it easier to create a business plan and attract investors.
"If we can provide a fixed energy price over a long period of time, this could be 10, 15, 20 years, they can optimize their balance sheet," Feasel said. "It provides energy certainty and less risk around the cost of energy."
The cost per kilowatt-hour (kWh) varies from service territory and project, but Feasel said it’s in the range of 10 to 15 cents per kWh, competitive with average industrial energy rates, depending on the region.
Plant factories have a unique energy load profile. They’re incredibly energy-intense for three-quarters of the day, and then shed most of their loads when the lights turn off.
However, it’s unclear if this price for electricity will work for indoor farm operations in the long run. Ashcraft’s analysis shows that a farm would need a price of between 7 to 9 cents per kWh to break even. Matt Barnard, CEO of the vertical farming startup Plenty, pegged the desired cost even lower, saying the company would need 3 to 5 cents per kWH to succeed.
"This question gets to the heart of whether this industry will be able to succeed and scale. It’s a discussion of unit economics," Ashcraft said. "These are growing commodities. And they’re forced to compete with commodity prices at the grocery store. I have not seen any evidence that consumers are willing to pay any multiple of any price for produce."
Still, the market is young, and capital is flowing to technological innovations. The Union Bank of Switzerland predicts food innovation will be a $700 billion market by 2030 a fivefold increase from 2018, meaning financial markets are investing in making rethinking food. Fifth Season has raised $35 million in finance, Bowery has raised $172.5 million and Plenty has raised $260 million, thanks to Jeff Bezos and SoftBank, so the startups may have wiggle room to work on efficiencies and economies.
The unique opportunities and challenges of indoor agriculture
Plant factories have a unique energy load profile. They’re incredibly energy-intense for three-quarters of the day, and then shed most of their loads when the lights turn off and the plants get tucked into their vertical bunks for the night.
Plants don’t care when "night" comes, meaning operators have the opportunity to respond to utility price signals. This flexibility is different from more finicky power loads, such as data centers, which must have constant electricity to function.
For example, if the grid has excess solar capacity in the middle of the day, plant farms could suck that up. Then when peak rates hit, the plants could start their "night" cycle. If done well, and if located in a service territory with a friendly utility and regulator, indoor agriculture operations could achieve lower rates while benefiting the grid.
To hear more about how this works, check out Ashcraft and Kann’s conversation on The Interchange in 2018.
Scale’s microgrids come with Schneider’s energy management software platform "EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor." This system could be attractive to indoor agriculture startups that are putting its brain power behind getting the plants right, not energy management. The tradeoff is that the startup then would split the upside with Scale and Schneider. Not a bad deal, as long as the economics work.
This article is adapted from GreenBiz's newsletter Energy Weekly, running Thursdays. Subscribe here.
Topics: Renewable Energy Food Systems
Tags: Microgrids urban agriculture
Shape The Future of CEA Energy Policy at IAES Conference – Special Discount For Growers
Are you an owner, operator, or employee of an indoor farm? IAES Conference is offering a special reduced registration of only $100 for growers and cultivators
SAN DIEGO, CA, January 15, 2020–As California policymakers develop codes for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), Resource Innovation Institute (RII) will convene the inaugural Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions (IAES) Conference, connecting policymakers, utility program managers, equipment manufacturers, and suppliers, researchers, manufacturers, cultivators, and investors to shape the future of energy policies and utility programs for CEA.
The IAES Conference will be held at the San Diego La Jolla Marriott, February 24-26, 2020.
Are you an owner, operator, or employee of an indoor farm? IAES Conference is offering a special reduced registration of only $100 for growers and cultivators.
To receive your discount code, please contact
Stephen Baboi at sbaboi@drintl.com
or on LinkedIn and ask about the “IAES Grower Discount.”
Expanding on RII’s mission to advance resource efficiency in the rapidly expanding indoor agriculture sector, this first-of-its-kind event arrives at a critical moment in time for controlled environment agriculture. Cannabis legalization is accelerating across North America, and the urban and vertical farming sector is scaling rapidly for crops of all kinds.
Urban areas and food deserts are looking at indoor farming as a way to access locally grown produce. As a result, the carbon and energy implications of indoor controlled environments are becoming more impactful. Drawing from the experiences of early models, this conference will explore energy solutions for indoor agriculture without focusing on any one crop.
Conference attendees will access educational sessions presented by experts in the field, connect with policymakers and other industry leaders, and discuss cutting-edge policies and technologies. IAES will elevate innovative solutions related to energy access, efficiency and sustainability and shape the future of indoor agriculture.
Keynote speakers include Kay Doyle from the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission, Dr. Mark Lefsrud from McGill University’s Biomass Production Laboratory, and Dr. Nadia Sabeh a.k.a “Dr. Greenhouse.”
“We have the opportunity to take the lessons learned from initial government, utility and non-profit responses addressing the energy and carbon impacts of regulated cannabis and apply them to the broader world of controlled environment agriculture,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of RII. “These learnings will inform controlled environment agriculture broadly. This is precisely why we are hosting the Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions conference. And we look forward to convening top stakeholders to join the dialogue.”
Visit www.iaesconference.com to review the program and speaker bios, inquire about sponsorship, and register for the conference. To stay up-to-date on conference news, follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
About Resource Innovation Institute
Resource Innovation Institute (RII) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance resource efficiency to create a better cannabis future. Founded in 2016 in Portland, Ore., USA, RII’s Board of Directors includes the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a former Energy Policy Advisor to two Oregon governors, a former board member of the US Green Building Council and leading cannabis industry players.
The organization has unique expertise in data, policy, and education related to cannabis energy use. Its Cannabis PowerScore benchmarking survey is backed by the world’s largest dataset on cannabis energy use. RII’s Technical Advisory Council is the leading multi-disciplinary body assessing the environmental impacts and best practices associated with cultivation resource issues. In 2018, RII advised the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the establishment of the world’s first cannabis energy regulations, and it is now advising other governments.
RII’s Efficient Yields cultivation workshops are the only grower-led, non-commercial venues for the exchange of resource-efficient cultivation best practices. RII is funded by utilities, foundations, governments, and the cannabis supply chain.
Visit our website at ResourceInnovation.org.
Getting Off The Grid: Alternative Energies For Hydro Systems
With solar cells dropping in price and battery systems improving all the time, there are considerable benefits to looking at alternative energy sources for your growing needs
Chris Bond | October 29, 2019
Takeaway: With solar cells dropping in price and battery systems improving all the time, there are considerable benefits to looking at alternative energy sources for your growing needs. Chris Bond provides an overview of what is out there for those curious about unplugging from the grid and taking power into their own hands.
Nearly all the components of a hydroponic system can be partially or fully powered by alternative energies. Any system that runs on electricity or battery power ---such as lighting, pumps, filters, agitators, and timers--- can be altered to run on off-the-grid power sources.
Not all energy sources are practical for all systems, and many may be too cost-prohibitive to implement with complete efficiency.
But for the majority of alternative systems, there is usually a DIY version or an online hack out there that can help you to grow your greens without using petroleum or non-renewable energy sources.
Join thousands of other growers who are already receiving our monthly newsletter.
The systems outlined below are just an overview of the different types of alternative energies available and should not be considered a how-to. Most of the energy systems will generate direct current (DC). An inverter is required to convert the DC into alternating current (AC) to be useful for most of the appliances that a hydroponic system runs on. Another option is to consider converting your components to be compatible with DC.
Solar Energy
The effectiveness of any solar energy collection system for your growroom depends on how much sunlight you receive and how large of a collection system you can install. If you can put solar panels on the south-facing slope of your roof that aren't blocked by any large shade trees, then you will likely have enough power for more than just your hydroponic system.
Many homes, especially older ones, aren't suited for this type of installation. Solar panels can be placed on other buildings or as free-standing units in your yard. Their effectiveness then becomes reliant on factors such as the time of year or amount of cloud cover in your area.
The benefit of adding a solar collection system to your hydroponic set-up is that solar panels and other solar collection devices continue to improve as technology and demand increase. Simple systems can be installed to manually (or automatically) turn to follow the path of the sun.
Other solar collection devices are designed to warm the water by heating the pipes instead of converting sun energy into a current. This system can either expel heat or simply reduce the amount of energy required to heat your water.
Solar has come a long way in the last 20 years and there is an application for almost every scenario. It is also a type of alternative energy that can easily be added onto. You could, for instance, attempt to power just one aspect of your hydro system and keep building from there until the entire hydroponic system runs on stored energy derived from the conversion of solar power into usable current.
Wind Energy
Most people can imagine the way wind energy works as the concept is fairly simple. As the wind blows, a rotor or turbine spins. The energy derived from spinning is converted by a generator into usable power. The number of materials used to create a wind turbine also makes the prospect accessible to many and encourages creativity.
Wind turbines can be made from parts of 55-gallon drums, old satellite dishes, canvas sails, and almost anything that can cup the wind and spin freely. But the difficulty lies in the actual application of harnessing the wind power on a small scale and its practicality. Both of these depend on your location.
If you have an open piece of land that is an acre or more in size, wind power may be practical. If you live in an urban setting, in one of the tallest buildings, and have access to the roof, wind power may be practical. In a typical suburban setting, however, only very small scale energy applications are usually worth your time and investment. In these environments, it may make more sense to try to power only a portion of your hydro system with wind and then store whatever energy it creates into a battery.
Hydro Power
Yes, you can run your hydroponic system on hydropower; that is, if you have access to a source of running water on your property. In a nutshell, a portion of the flowing water gets diverted into a pipe (conveyance) where it is delivered to a pump or waterwheel. This then converts the flow of the water into rotational energy. An alternator or generator then converts the rotational energy into electrical current.
This system could be modified to run on stored water from a reservoir, but most hydro power systems take advantage of the natural flow of a body of water.
The initial investment will vary greatly depending on both the distance from the water source and how many kilowatts (kW) the system will generate. Many farm-based systems can produce up to 100kW, but even a modest 10kW is more than adequate to power a small growing operation.
Geothermal
Using geothermal energy in your hydroponic system is not as common as using solar, wind, or hydro energies, but it is still worth considering. If you are already paying for the energy it takes to heat your growroom, or are in the position of building a new hydroponics system, it pays to employ geothermal heating if you can.
Basically, geothermal heating takes advantage of underground soil or water temperatures. It draws this heat up from the ground into your structure and greatly reduces the amount of supplemental energy need to heat or cool the space around it.
There are many downsides to geothermal. Even though the temperature underground is fairly consistent throughout the country, accessibility is not reliable. Even if you do live in an area where the Earth’s underground warmth can be used, you will be unable to take advantage of this technology if you do not own the building or possess the right to dig beneath it.
However, if it is an option for you, you should consider tapping into this geothermal energy. It has a relatively quick payback period; you should immediately see the cost of heating or cooling your hydroponic space reduces.
Bioenergy
Making your own biofuels to either power some aspect of your operation or to heat the space you are growing in is probably the least likely of all the alternative energies listed here.
It is worth exploring, however, as most people create enough organic waste to power such a system. Grass clippings, food scraps, animal manures, and other organic wastes can be put into a digester to create biogas, which is a renewable alternative to natural gas.
While not practical for most people at the moment, bioenergy may represent a viable way to generate much of the energy needed to run your growing operation—maybe even your entire household—as the technology gets more widely utilized in coming years.
Rain Harvesting
Though not truly an alternative energy, collecting rainwater belongs in a discussion of using alternatives for a hydroponic system. Like the wind turbine, rain harvesting systems can be made from a wide variety of materials—five-gallon buckets, food-grade containers, or any collection tank that can hold water. Multiple small containers can be linked in series so that as one fills, the overflow goes into the next.
Most plants thrive better in rainwater than from city or well water. A hydroponic system can be supplemented, or filled entirely, with rainwater. As with any water source, careful scrutinizing of the pH and EC levels are called for. It is also important to maintain periodic agitation to prevent the development of algae or promote the breeding of insects.
Extra Considerations
No matter the type of alternative energy you consider to power your hydroponic system, there are a few things to keep in mind. Permissions range widely from municipality to municipality and you will need to know what your area’s zoning laws allow for, what requires a permit, and what is forbidden under any circumstances.
If you are considering installing a wind turbine, there are likely building codes to follow. The same goes for the installation of solar panels and collectors. However, many small-scale ventures into alternative energy can be done without affecting your neighbor’s view or without constructing large structures.
If you intend to harness the power of any stream, creek, river, or public body of water, you will need to obtain the appropriate permissions and may need to invest in equipment or components that measure your water usage and prevent backflow into the streams.
If any of these strategies sound appealing, but you lack the requisite building or engineering skills, there are more and more professional companies springing up that specialize in alternative energy installations for almost any application. Some of these strategies may even offer tax incentives. Check with your tax professional before claiming any alternative energy credit first, however, as many such programs are specific around how to qualify.
Written by Chris Bond
Chris Bond’s research interests are with sustainable agriculture, biological pest control, and alternative growing methods. He is a certified permaculture designer and certified nursery technician in Ohio and a certified nursery professional in New York, where he got his start in growing.
Resource Innovation Institute To Host Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions Conference
As California policymakers develop codes for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), Resource Innovation Institute (RII) will convene the inaugural Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions (IAES) Conference, connecting policymakers, utility program managers, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, researchers, manufacturers, cultivators and investors to shape the future of energy policies and utility programs for CEA
SAN DIEGO, CA, October 2019 – As California policymakers develop codes for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), Resource Innovation Institute (RII) will convene the inaugural Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions (IAES) Conference, connecting policymakers, utility program managers, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, researchers, manufacturers, cultivators and investors to shape the future of energy policies and utility programs for CEA.
The IAES Conference will be held at the San Diego La Jolla Marriott on February 24-26, 2020.
Expanding on RII’s mission to advance resource efficiency in the rapidly expanding indoor agriculture sector, this first-of-its-kind event arrives at a critical moment in time for controlled environment agriculture.
The urban and vertical farming sector is scaling rapidly for crops of all kinds, accelerated by cannabis legalization across North America. Urban areas and food deserts are looking at indoor farming as a way to access locally grown produce. As a result, the carbon and energy implications of indoor controlled environments are becoming more impactful.
Drawing from the experiences of early models, this conference will explore energy solutions for indoor agriculture without focusing on any one crop.
Conference attendees will access educational sessions presented by experts in the field, connect with leaders in the industry and discuss cutting-edge policies and technologies. IAES will elevate innovative solutions related to energy access, efficiency and sustainability and shape the future of indoor agriculture.
“We have the opportunity to take the lessons learned from initial government, utility and non-profit responses addressing the energy and carbon impacts of regulated cannabis and apply them to the broader world of controlled environment agriculture,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of RII. “These learnings will inform controlled environment agriculture broadly. This is precisely why we are hosting the Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions conference. And we look forward to convening top stakeholders to join the dialogue.”
Registration can be secured via
https://www.iaesconference.com/registration
About Resource Innovation Institute
Resource Innovation Institute (RII) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance resource efficiency to create a better cannabis future. Founded in 2016 in Portland, OR, USA, RII’s Board of Directors includes the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a former Energy Policy Advisor to two Oregon governors, a former board member of the US Green Building Council and leading cannabis industry players.
The organization has unique expertise on data, policy, and education related to cannabis energy use. Its Cannabis PowerScore benchmarking survey is backed by the world’s largest dataset on cannabis energy use. RII’s Technical Advisory Council is the leading multi-disciplinary body assessing the environmental impacts and best practices associated with cultivation resource issues. In 2018, RII advised the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the establishment of the world’s first cannabis energy regulations, and it is now advising other governments. RII’s Efficient Yields cultivation workshops are the only grower-led, non-commercial venues for the exchange of resource-efficient cultivation best practices.
RII is funded by utilities, foundations, governments, and the cannabis supply chain.
Resource Innovation Institute To Host Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions Conference
As California policymakers develop codes for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), Resource Innovation Institute (RII) will convene the inaugural Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions (IAES) Conference, connecting policymakers, utility program managers, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, researchers, manufacturers, cultivators and investors to shape the future of energy policies and utility programs for CEA. The IAES Conference will be held at the San Diego La Jolla Marriott on February 24-26, 2020.
SAN DIEGO, CA – As California policymakers develop codes for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), Resource Innovation Institute (RII) will convene the inaugural Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions (IAES) Conference, connecting policymakers, utility program managers, equipment manufacturers and suppliers, researchers, manufacturers, cultivators and investors to shape the future of energy policies and utility programs for CEA. The IAES Conference will be held at the San Diego La Jolla Marriott on February 24-26, 2020.
Expanding on RII’s mission to advance resource efficiency in the rapidly expanding indoor agriculture sector, this first-of-its-kind event arrives at a critical moment in time for controlled environment agriculture. Cannabis legalization is accelerating across North America, and the urban and vertical farming sector is scaling rapidly for crops of all kinds. As a result, the carbon and energy implications of indoor controlled environments are becoming more impactful. Drawing from the experiences of early models adopted by cannabis cultivators, this conference will explore energy solutions for indoor agriculture without focusing on any one crop.
Conference attendees will access educational sessions presented by experts in the field, connect with leaders in the industry and discuss cutting-edge policies and technologies. IAES will elevate innovative solutions related to energy access, efficiency and sustainability and shape the future of indoor agriculture.
“We have the opportunity to take the lessons learned from initial government, utility and non-profit responses addressing the energy and carbon impacts of regulated cannabis and apply them to the broader world of controlled environment agriculture,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of RII. “As the highest margin crop among a set of leafy greens and small vegetables, cannabis cultivation is driving billions of dollars of privately funded R&D into efficient lighting, automation, and greenhouse design. These learnings will inform controlled environment agriculture broadly. Just as non-cannabis CEA learnings will inform cannabis. This is precisely why we are hosting the Indoor Agriculture Energy Solutions conference. And we look forward to convening top stakeholders to join the dialogue.”
Registration can be secured via https://www.iaesconference.com/registration.
About Resource Innovation Institute
Resource Innovation Institute (RII) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance resource efficiency to create a better cannabis future. Founded in 2016 in Portland, OR, USA, RII’s Board of Directors includes the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), a former Energy Policy Advisor to two Oregon governors, a former board member of the US Green Building Council and leading cannabis industry players.
The organization has unique expertise on data, policy, and education related to cannabis energy use. Its Cannabis PowerScore benchmarking survey is backed by the world’s largest dataset on cannabis energy use. RII’s Technical Advisory Council is the leading multi-disciplinary body assessing the environmental impacts and best practices associated with cultivation resource issues. In 2018, RII advised the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the establishment of the world’s first cannabis energy regulations, and it is now advising other governments. RII’s Efficient Yields cultivation workshops are the only grower-led, non-commercial venues for the exchange of resource-efficient cultivation best practices.
RII is funded by utilities, foundations, governments, and the cannabis supply chain.
Visit our website at ResourceInnovation.org. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
"Geothermal Energy Will Become Commonplace Sooner Than We Think"
Although geothermal energy, biomass power plants and other alternative energy sources have received a lot of attention since the recently concluded Climate Agreement, it has been the focus of attention within the horticultural sector for much longer
Léon Lankester, AAB:
Although geothermal energy, biomass power plants and other alternative energy sources have received a lot of attention since the recently concluded Climate Agreement, it has been the focus of attention within the horticultural sector for much longer. "Actually, for years growers have kept innovating for a license to produce and energy cost reduction," says Léon Lankester of AAB. "Geothermal energy, in particular, has been increasing greatly in the last ten years and that will only further increase in the coming years."
700 doublets
The national ambitions are considerable. In 2050, according to the Geothermal Energy Master Plan in the Netherlands, 700 doublets must provide nearly 4 million households with geothermal energy and a total of 6 million homes with heat (now there are only 375,000). In the year 2019, there are 20 doublets in the Netherlands, most of which can be found in greenhouse horticulture areas. "The use of geothermal energy started 12 years ago," says Léon. “Far more than the industry and the consumer, in the greenhouse horticulture sector they are looking for alternatives to fossil energy. That is also not surprising, since energy accounts for around a third of the total cost. This shows again that greenhouse horticulture is a creative sector. If you always think about the costs and continuity of your company, you will automatically innovate. That the sector can work together well, also helps. Cooperation is essential for the construction of heat networks."
Process guidance
AAB has been advising on sustainable energy options for more than 15 years. The company guides a grower through the entire process, from idea to realization. "Growers often already have an idea, but they come to us to work it out," Léon explains. “First we discuss why the grower wants to make a sustainability step. Then we look at who will join. Can he do it alone or can he collaborate with neighbors? It is a project that involves a lot of money, so it is important to form a team that is decisive enough to make choices together. Then the next step follows: what exactly are we going to do? Will it be geothermal energy, a biomass boiler/wood boiler or residual heat? A combination is also possible, as we see in Vierpolders. There are plans are ready to expand a geothermal heat project with a biomass installation. In response to the ‘where?’ a good location must be found. Increasingly it concerns combination solutions between the built environment and horticulture. The geothermal sources and the quality of that heat fit very well with the demand of a home when it comes to heat and tap water."
Paperwork
When the plan has been outlined, it is time for the ‘paperwork’. Applying for permits, describing environmental effects and possibly the request to change the zoning plan. Growers like to make considerations in the process, Léon notes. “One grower has more time available to sort things out than the other, so our advice differs per project. The calculation of the plan, the engineering and the construction supervision is almost always awarded to us. We make a business case with a financial plan. With this we try to make banks enthusiastic. In addition, subsidies are used to cover the unprofitable top."
Suitable in the surroundings
The plans regularly encounter resistance from the surrounding area. “Sometimes we have to deal with action groups. It is important to inform the local residents. We do this, for example, by organizing evening meetings for the neighborhood. Furthermore, we always take into account that the design fits in with the surroundings and meets the requirements from legislation and regulations, such as the PAS.”
For more information:
AAB
www.aabint.com
Publication date: 8/23/2019
© HortiDaily.com
Solar Power Farms Continue To Spread Across The Globe
Sungrow, the global leading inverter solution supplier for renewables, announced that a 100.1 MWp solar plant utilizing the Company’s 1500Vdc central inverter solutions came online in Cafayate, Salta Province, Argentina, demonstrating the Company’s dedicated contribution to the largest solar plant in one of LATAM’s most booming solar energy region
By Ivy Heffernan on August 19, 2019
Sungrow, the global leading inverter solution supplier for renewables, announced that a 100.1 MWp solar plant utilizing the Company’s 1500Vdc central inverter solutions came online in Cafayate, Salta Province, Argentina, demonstrating the Company’s dedicated contribution to the largest solar plant in one of LATAM’s most booming solar energy regions.
(Not Argentinian solar farm. In place to express how large the solar power farming industry is becoming).
The project is located in Cafayate, a region optimized for solar energy due to a high-volume of sunny days, while frequented by sandstorms, putting solar project equipment susceptible to significant wear-and-tear. Embedded with a high protection level and smart forced air-cooling technology, the 6.25 MW turnkey solution with Sungrow central inverter SG3125HV for 1500Vdc system can perform efficiently and stably even in harsh environments, making it the ideal match for the plant.
Optimized for large-scale utility PV plant, the solution enables high yields with maximum inverter efficiency of 99% and DC/AC ratio up to 1.5 while at the same time ensures low transportation and installation cost due to standard container design. Early this May, Sungrow secured deal for 400 MW solar park in Chile, utilizing the solution as well.
The solar park was selected by Argentinean government in the second round (Ronda 1.5) of the country’s RenovAr auction program for large-scale renewable energy plants. It is expected to supply approximately 240 GWh of clean power to the Argentinean power system per year and bring hundreds of job creations for local communities, contributing to the national renewable ambition of the emerging solar hub.
“We are delighted to partner with Sungrow to build the landmark project in this country with vital solar resource and look forward to collaborating on more ventures in the near future in line with the extension of ‘the Belt and Road’ initiative,” said an executive from PowerChina, the EPC of the solar plant.
“We are very proud to be a part of this monumental 100.1 MWp project which will provide thousands of Argentinians with clean energy,” said James Wu, Vice President of Sungrow. “This will have positive effects on local economy–tap the potential of renewable energy further and diversify the energy mix,” he added.
Since entering the Latin American market in late 2010s, Sungrow team has been establishing itself as the comprehensive technical, service and sales platform. Currently, the Company’s shipment in the region approaches 1 GW. Furthermore, a wide range of product portfolio will be showcased in the upcoming solar function, Intersolar South America 2019 (27-29, August, Booth D36), representing its commitment to technical innovation and concerns for local demand.
About Sungrow
Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd (“Sungrow”) is a global leading inverter solution supplier for renewables with over 87 GW installed worldwide as of June 2019. Founded in 1997 by University Professor Cao Renxian, Sungrow is a leader in the research and development of solar inverters, with the largest dedicated R&D team in the industry and a broad product portfolio offering PV inverter solutions and energy storage systems for utility-scale, commercial, and residential applications, as well as internationally recognized floating PV plant solutions. With a strong 22-year track record in the PV space, Sungrow products power installations in over 60 countries, maintaining a worldwide market share of over 15%.
Argentina, farming, green energy, renewable energy, solar, solar power, Sungrow
Solar Power Farms Continue To Spread Across The Globe added by Ivy Heffernan on August 19, 2019
View all posts by Ivy Heffernan →
Ivy Heffernan, student of Economics at Buckingham University. Junior Analyst at HeffX and experienced marketing director.and experienced marketing director.
Solar Panels Could Make Saltwater Safe For Farming
A new device created by researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia can purify water through solar power
An ambitious project in Saudi Arabia wants to capture wasted solar heat for good uses.
July 11, 2019
A new device created by researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia can purify water through solar power. While there have been previous attempts to merge solar power and clean water, the scientists say they have developed a new three-stage system that radically increases efficiency.
The need to combine water purification through clean means is a growing one, giving the rise in man-made climate change. Water scarcity is increasing throughout a variety of places on the planet, from South Africa to India. "The water-energy nexus is one of the main issues threatening sustainable global development," says Wenbin Wang, a Ph.D. student at the University's Water Desalination and Reuse Center, in a press statement.
To combat the problem, the KAUST team looked at solar panels holistically. Silicon solar panels take in around 20 percent of the light they absorb, converting them into electricity. While that number is increasing, scientists predict that no photovoltaic (PV) panel will be able to absorb more than around 27 percent of the light. That leaves a significant amount of light being reflected, which generates heat.
The team, led by Professor Peng Wang of the Reuse Center, looked to put that heat to work.
"The PV panel generates a lot of heat, and the heat is considered a headache in PV,” Wang tells Cosmos. "The uniqueness of the device lies in its smart and effective use of the waste heat of the PV as a resource, which leads to its high efficiency in both electricity and fresh water production."
To capture the heat, the team built out a stack of water channels, separated by porous hydrophobic membranes and heat conduction layers. These layers were attached to the bottom of a commercial PV panel. Heat from the panel would vaporize seawater in the top channel, cross through the porous membrane, and then finally condense as fresh water in the third channel.
The team also put the vapor of the seawater to use. A thermal conduction layer to the next seawater channel would collect its heat, allowing the machine to recycle that energy and create even more fresh water.
RELATED STORIES
A Bright Future: How Solar Panels Work
Did Scientists Crack the Desalination Problem?
In tests, the team was able to generate up to 1.64 liters of water per square meter of solar panel surface every hour.
“In a sense, it utilizes solar energy to a much fuller capacity,” Wang tells Cosmos.
The next step for the team is to try and expand its project to the extent that it would be viable for agriculture. Many innovations in agriculture, like vertical farming, attempt to save water. Being able to use saltwater for farms could radically change how water is consumed around the world. In the U.S. alone, farming represents approximately 80 percent of the country's consumptive water use.
"Raising sheep in the field of PV farms is feasible because grass grows well using the fresh water from solar-panel washing," Wenbin says in the press statement. "A PV farm with sheep grazing while seawater is desalinated using our device could be ideal in arid regions near the coast."
France: No More Heated Organic Greenhouse Crops Sold In Winter
European organic rules say organic growers have to respect the natural seasons and use energy responsibly and if possible in a renewable way.
Growing organic vegetables in a heated greenhouse. According to various French organizations this is a complete contradiction, but according to the European organic certification rules there's nothing wrong with it. Today the French decided it will remain possible to grow organic in heated greenhouses - although new restrictions will come into place.
The debate
European organic rules say organic growers have to respect the natural seasons and use energy responsibly and if possible in a renewable way. A not very clear guideline - and therefore currently over 40 French greenhouses are heated and organic. This amount is growing: the demand for organic vegetables in France is currently higher than the supply. However, the heating of organic greenhouses is a thorn in the side of many French.
This week nearly 100 Parliamentarians wrote to Didier Guillaume, Minister of Agriculture, to emphasize their support with an online petition, started by the French organic organization FNAB, Greenpeace France and other organizations. Within 6 weeks this petition was signed by over 80,000 people. "We expect you to listen to these voices on July 11th", they said. "Because it's not only about heated greenhouses - it's also about the future of both agriculture and energy in our country."
They called out to refuse the use of heating in French organic greenhouses. According to Philippe Riffared, organic greenhouse grower and co-president of Grab Bio Center, the shelf life of heated produce is way lower and it's grown in a non-sustainable way. "We don't want the consumer to lose faith in the organic label", he says, pointing out the use of CO2 by heated production is way higher than non-heated production. Other growers point out that during summer, the unheated crops are being pushed out of the market by greenhouse-grown tomatoes.
Only producing three months per year
Of course, there's another side to the story as well. Greenhouse growers try to explain how they need heating. "If we have to stop heating our greenhouses tomorrow, it means the French consumer has to buy Spanish produce in April and May. Our quality is much better though", organic grower Jean-Luc Roux told Europe1. He grows his tomatoes with a biomass boiler and therefore reduces the needed carbon dioxide as well.
Horticultural organization FNSEA points out that greenhouse growing helps nature, limiting the use of chemicals and water and saving the soils, and on top of that limiting import needs for produce from Germany, Poland, Israel or Argentina. They say giving up heating would distort competition within Europe, pointing out currently 78% of the French organic tomatoes are imported.
Also the Minister of Agriculture, Didier Guillaume, said Tuesday to senators, the government was "not opposed" to the heating of greenhouses in organic farming. "We are, and I am, very opposed to the counter-seasonality of fruits and vegetables," he insisted.
Debate
It's clear that the debate over unheated greenhouses has heated up in France. The decision on the rules was postponed twice in the last 8 months since there was no unity to be reached. Now the rules have become clear. The Ministry of Agriculture announced heating will be allowed, but on a restricted schedule: there will be no marketing between 21 December and 30 April of organic fruit and vegetables produced in French heated greenhouses, said the Ministry of Agriculture.
On top of that the government plans to impose the use of renewable energy to feed these greenhouses by 2025, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
The responses are mixed. "Allowing the sale of organic tomatoes from the first day of spring is equivalent to authorizing the heating of organic greenhouses throughout the winter to more than 20 degrees, the equivalent of 200,000 to 250,000 liters of fuel oil per hectare", said Jean-Paul Gabillard, market gardener and national vegetable secretary at Fnab.
Publication date: 7/11/2019
Power REIT Announces Acquisitions As Part of A New Investment Focus and Publishes Updated Investor Presentation
Power REIT is expanding its focus to include agricultural real estate with a focus on Controlled Environment Agriculture (“CEA”)
New Investment Focus on
Controlled Environment Agriculture (”CEA”)
New Focus For Acquisitions
Old Bethpage, NY, July 15, 2019, Power Reit (NYSE American: PW) is announcing an expanded focus for acquisitions. In addition to its existing high quality real estate related to transportation infrastructure and alternative energy, Power REIT is expanding its focus to include agricultural real estate with a focus on Controlled Environment Agriculture (“CEA”). CEA is an innovative method of growing plants that involves creating optimized growing environments for a given crop indoors. Power REIT intends to focus on CEA related real estate for growing food as well as cannabis.
Controlled Environment Agriculture
Power REIT believes agricultural production is ripe for technological transformation and that we are at the early stages of a boom in agricultural venture capital that, among other things, will shift food production for certain crops from traditional outdoor farms to CEA “food factories.” Since a significant portion of any given CEA enterprise is real estate, Power REIT sees an opportunity to participate in the trend towards indoor agriculture.
CEA facilities are generally greenhouses or industrial properties specifically designed to efficiently grow crops. Power REIT will primarily focus on greenhouses as opposed to other forms of indoor agriculture properties based on a thesis that for many crops, greenhouses should be the most cost competitive producer given the higher capital and operating costs associated with other indoor growing facilities that do not benefit from sunlight for their crops.
Controlled Environment Agriculture for Food Production
CEA for food production is widely adopted in parts of Europe and is becoming an increasingly competitive alternative to traditional farming for a variety of reasons. CEA caters to consumer desires for sustainable and locally grown products. Locally grown indoor produce will have a longer shelf life as the plants are healthier and also travel shorter distances thereby reducing food waste. In addition, a controlled environment produces high-quality pesticide free products that eliminates seasonality and provides highly predictable output that can be used to simplify the supply chain to the grocer’s shelf.
As the amount of productive farmland continues to decline, CEA can provide a sustainable and economic solution to feed our growing population. Climate change is having a negative impact on traditional farming and is making once rich areas for farming arid and inhospitable. Hydroponic growing use 95% less water and can grow more than twenty-times traditional farming in the same area. Simply put, CEA can lower the carbon footprint associated with our food supply.
Power REIT has an active pipeline of CEA projects it is pursuing.
Controlled Environment Agriculture for Cannabis
The legal cannabis industry in the United States is projected to hit $25 billion of revenue by the year 2025.
With the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, the cultivation of hemp was legalized and regulated across the United States. Hemp is produced from the Cannabis Sativa strain and has properties that contain almost no THC, the federally illegal hallucinogenic compound found in marijuana. Hemp has many industrial uses including textiles, animal bedding and mulch. Hemp is also commonly used to produce CBD which is used in a variety of skincare and homeopathic products ranging from oils and moisturizers to sleep and relaxation aids.
Currently 34 states have legalized marijuana for medical purposes and 11 of those states have also legalized adult recreational use of marijuana. Many other states have decriminalized marijuana use even without formally changing laws and many remaining States continue to evaluate legalization. In addition, there is the potential for federal legalization across the United States at some point in the future given the momentum generated at the State level.
Power REIT is focused on investing in the cultivation and production side of the cannabis industry through the ownership of real estate. As such it is not directly in the cannabis business and also not even indirectly involved with facilities that sell cannabis directly to consumers. By serving as a landlord, Power REIT believes it can generate attractive risk adjusted returns related to the fast growing cannabis industry and that this offers a safer approach than investing directly in cannabis operating businesses.
Acquisition of greenhouse properties in Colorado for cultivation and processing of Cannabis
On July 15, 2019, through wholly owned subsidiaries, Power REIT is announcing that it has completed the acquisition of two greenhouse properties in southern Colorado. One property was acquired for $1,075,000 and is 2.11 acres and has an existing greenhouse and processing facility totaling 12,996 square feet. The other property was acquired for $695,000 and is 5.2 acres and has an existing greenhouse and processing facility totaling 5,616 square feet. The total combined purchase price of $1,770,000 plus acquisition expenses was paid with existing working capital.
Concurrent with the closing on the acquisitions we entered into leases with a tenant that is licensed for the production of medical marijuana at the facilities. The tenant is an affiliate of a company that is active in the Colorado cannabis market and currently has two indoor cultivation facilities and five dispensary locations. The tenant has also received a preliminary approval to operate a dispensary in the town where the properties are located. The leases require the tenant to maintain a medical marijuana license and operate in accordance with all Colorado and local regulations with respect to their operations and also prohibits the retail sale of its products from the properties.
The leases provide that tenant is responsible for paying all expenses related to the properties including maintenance expenses, insurance and taxes. The term of each of the Leases is 20 years and provides two options to extend for additional five-year periods. The Leases also have financial guarantees from affiliates of the tenant.
The rent for each of the leases is structured whereby after a six-month free-rent period, the rental payments provide a full return of invested capital over the next three years in equal monthly payments. After the 42nd month, rent is structured to provide a 12.5% return on the original invested capital amount which increases at a 3% rate per annum. At any time after year 6, the rent level will be readjusted down to an amount equal to a 9% return on the original invested capital amount and will increase at a 3% rate per annum based on a starting date of the start of year seven.
The combined straight-line annual rent will be approximately $331,000 although, as described above, the rental payments are accelerated such that we receive a full return of capital over the first 42 months of the lease. David Lesser, Power REIT’s Chairman and CEO, commented, “These acquisitions represent a starting point for our new focus on greenhouse based Controlled Environment Agriculture projects and will be immediately accretive to earnings. We have an active pipeline of potential acquisitions that we are pursuing. Given the small size of our company, we believe that we can deploy capital for real estate focused on Controlled Environment Agriculture on a highly accretive basis.”
Both properties have plans to expand the greenhouse growing and processing space and the leases provide that we have the right to fund such projects on comparable terms to the original leases. Mr. Lesser commented that “this creates the built-in ability for us to deploy additional capital on risk adjusted terms that should prove to be attractive and on a highly accretive basis.”
The greenhouse properties are located in a very favorable plant-growing environment that benefits from over 360 days of sunlight annually and offers a dry climate. In addition the local communities are supportive of cannabis growing facilities unlike places which are confronted with “not in my backyard” pressures. Both properties have been granted “use by right” authority from the county to grow cannabis which provides long-term stability to allow the facility to grow cannabis. In addition, both properties are located in an Opportunity Zone. Opportunity Zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and provide a deferral of and potentially an elimination of capital gains related to qualified investments.
Updated Investor Presentation
On July 15, 2019, Power REIT is announcing that an updated version of its investor presentation is available on its website: www.pwreit.com
About Power REIT
Power REIT is a real estate investment trust that owns real estate related to infrastructure assets including properties for Controlled Environment Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation. Power REIT is actively seeking to expand its real estate portfolio related to Controlled Environment Agriculture and Renewable Energy.
Cautionary Statement about Forward-Looking Statements
This document includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. securities laws. Forward-looking statements are those that predict or describe future events or trends and that do not relate solely to historical matters. You can generally identify forward-looking statements as statements containing the words "believe," "expect," "will," "anticipate," "intend," "estimate," "project," "plan," "assume", "seek" or other similar expressions, or negatives of those expressions, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words.
All statements contained in this document regarding our future strategy, future operations, future prospects, the future of our industries and results that might be obtained by pursuing management's current or future plans and objectives are forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements because the matters they describe are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other unpredictable factors, many of which are beyond our control. Our forward-looking statements are based on the information currently available to us and speak only as of the date of the filing of this document.
Over time, our actual results, performance, financial condition or achievements may differ from the anticipated results, performance, financial condition or achievements that are expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements, and such differences may be significant and materially adverse to our security holders.
Contact:
David H. Lesser, Chairman & CEO
(212) 750-0371
301 Winding Road
Old Bethpage, NY 11804
212-750-0371
LettUs Grow And Octopus Energy For Business Partner To Build a More Sustainable Vertical Farming Industry
LettUs Grow, the leading tech developer for vertical and indoor farming is partnering with Octopus Energy for Business, using its Vertical Power offering to bring down energy costs and reduce the environmental impact of controlled-environment farming
17TH JUNE 2019
LettUs Grow, the leading tech developer for vertical and indoor farming is partnering with Octopus Energy for Business, using its Vertical Power offering to bring down energy costs and reduce the environmental impact of controlled-environment farming.
LettUs Grow offers pioneering technology for efficient indoor, greenhouse and vertical farming in the UK – bringing to market this energy solution that other agri-tech businesses can use to operate more sustainably.
Octopus Energy for Business was established in 2018 to bring businesses a tech-enabled, 100% renewable energy proposition. Its Vertical Power tariffs track energy pricing in real-time, making it perfect for smart management of operations to reduce costs. LettUs Grow has modelled the savings for a ‘typical’ vertical farm on a Vertical Power tariff – seeing up to 12% cost reduction.
Zoisa Walton, Director of Octopus Energy for Business, says “The partnership between Octopus Energy for Business and LettUs Grow demonstrates the most advanced proposition for vertical farm energy provision currently offered in the UK.
“Here’s to supporting budding vertical farmers and laying the foundation for a greener future in the UK.”
Tech synergy
LettUs Grow’s proprietary software, Ostara, combines crop performance data with agile energy controls to efficiently automate lighting, heat and irrigation in vertical farms.
These ‘closed-loop’ controls are unique for the industry, sending feedback on the crop produced to adjust the energy input required; reducing errors, improving crop quality and making this future farming method even more efficient.
The system can be used in commercial-scale vertical farms, greenhouses or smaller urban farming projects and, when paired with Octopus Energy’s Vertical Power tariff, further reduces the cost of indoor growing.
LettUs Grow’s plant scientists are working with world-leading researchers and key technical partners to optimise these conditions with a focus on growing the tastiest, highest quality, most sustainable crops.
Charlie Guy, Co-founder and Managing Director of LettUs Grow says, “LettUs Grow’s products are designed with the future of energy in mind. Pairing the most energy-efficient crop growing systems with Octopus’ unique Vertical Power pricing will further optimise energy efficiency for our farmers.
“In the face of growing uncertainty for the UK farming industry, we are looking forward to offering this unique service to enable farmers to grow as efficiently as possible all-year-round in a predictable, climate resilient fashion.”
You may like:LettUs Grow secures £1m to build farms of the future