Energiehungrige vertikale Innengärten, die verbesserungswürdig sind – Vertikale Innengärten erfreuen sich bei Hausbesitzern und Restaurants immer größerer Beliebtheit und ermöglichen ihnen den ganzjährigen Anbau von Microgreens. Neue Untersuchungen haben jedoch einen großen Nachteil festgestellt: ihren Energiebedarf.
https://www.unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2024/energy-thirsty-indoor-vertical-gardens-ripe-for-improvement/
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From the article
>The ventilation and irrigation systems also accounted for a significant share of the overall energy usage, consuming 18% and 9% of the power costs respectively.
>The study, published in the *2024 IEEE International Workshop on Metrology for Living Environment (MetroLivEn)*, investigated the electricity consumption of a commercial home cultivator – or indoor garden – using smart meters to provide real-time information on electricity usage and peak demands.
>Lead author [Dr Gianluca Brunetti](https://people.unisa.edu.au/Gianluca.Brunetti) says the findings highlight opportunities to improve the technology used in domestic indoor vertical gardens to overcome energy inefficiencies.
>“Indoor vertical farming has significant potential to contribute to urban agriculture by growing crops year-round in compact spaces,” Dr Brunetti says.
>“However, energy consumption, particularly from artificial lighting and ventilation systems, must be carefully managed to ensure these systems are not only viable but also sustainable in the long term.
who would have thought using lights to grow plants would use more energy.
I use led and no hydroponics. Works great. Problem solved.
Working in agronomy I am always amazed by this kind of articles. This is something you can find by real simple calculation based on photosynthetic yield and energy prices. Sun is free, rain is free, soil cost a bit. Replacing this with artificial things costs a lot given the price of what you produce. I really don’t understand how is it possible to be surprised by this or you know really nothing about farming (which techbors tends to underestimate obviously).
It’s better to use energy to grow food then to power AI or crypto..
Hey guys. Maybe creating indoor sun is expensive.
https://i.imgur.com/wj152gF.jpeg
I used this principle to grow mini cannabis plants and it worked incredibly well
As someone who used to farm grapes, who worked developing agricultural technology, and now works as an electrician in a greenhouse:
No shit
These could be coupled with data centres, battery parks which could help with costs.
The heat from the data centre could be captured via air source heat pumps and used to keep the indoor farms warm to stimulate growth. They could operate off of cheap off peak energy by drawing down on the battery farm when capacity is available.
Couple these with other sources of renewables and costs would drop.
Also other sources of cost could be addressed. Lower food miles if located by population centres. Reusable packaging within supply chain. Link to industrial scale compost for nutrient sources. grey water capture and filtration. Automated harvesting.
I feel theres lots of opportunity for efficiency
Energy isn’t even the real problem it’s the insane amounts of water needed….. That water doesn’t get recycled just dumped out