The overall aim of the SmartGreens project is to design, develop and field trial of an innovative indoor farm for crop production. This proposed sustainable modular farm, SmartGreens uses photovoltaic (PV) insulating glazing combined with smart technologies to reduce the expensive carbon miles caused by mass food importation and therefore minimise the UK's overall carbon footprint. SmartGreens will also significantly reduce insecticide, fertiliser, and water usage. It will allow year-around crop production with continuous crops, achieving 5-6 crop cycles per year compared to just 1-2 cycles of conventional agriculture.
The SmartGreens farm requires considerably less energy than traditional greenhouses, thus reducing its reliance on conventional fossil fuel energy resources. Innovative transparent PV vacuum glazing panels providing insulation and electricity to power the heating and ventilation systems. To enhance food production, the hydroponic growing system consists of a water reservoir/nutrient, growing trays and LED lighting. In terms of indoor climatic control, SmartGreens utilises a highly efficient, compact thermoelectric heat pump powered by PV-DC will be used to provide additional heating in winter and a phase change material 'ChainStore' device for passive cooling during extreme hot seasons. In addition, a CO2 carbon capture/release device will be employed to allow increased CO2 for plant's photosynthesis to increase production. The SmartGreens farms will enable the production of a range of crops including tomatoes, lettuce, kale, spinach, basil, carrots, onions, cucumbers, mushrooms, and other valuable crops with high nutritional value, helping to improve the diets and thus long-term health of consumers.
The SmartGreens project will be beneficial for the farming industry and society in general. The project will create new job opportunities in food/agriculture, engineering, maintenance and operating services and energy sectors and also in the national/international trading businesses. The introduction of new sustainable farm technology is key to improving productivity by investing in the current and future agricultural industries.With the year-around production enabled by the highly efficient greenhouse, SmartGreens will enable the same amount of food to be grown in a smaller area. In the UK this will release land that can be used for tree planting to absorb carbon dioxide, thus helping the country to achieve zero nett carbon emissions by 2050, as well as providing more habitats for wildlife and places for outdoor recreation that engender improved mental health.
iGrowing and their partners Extreme Low Energy and Plant Raisers Ltd have developed an innovative smart growing system which has significantly reduced energy demand and is compatible with renewable energy solutions including solar panels and battery storage allowing off-grid solutions in remote areas. It has the potential to revolutionise crop growing in the UK, the West and globally. This project tests the system against industry standard LED growing systems, such as those used in vertical farms, and conventional glasshouse growing, to evidence power saving and improved growing performance. The project is timely, ensuring that the UK can become more self-sufficient in food production in a period when Brexit requires reduced reliance on EU imports and the impact of coronavirus has led to reduced food production and harvesting capacity.
ICT infrastructures are responsible for a significant proportion of electricity consumed, exceeding 1560TWh and corresponding to ~8% of the global demand. The energy usage of datacentres has a growth of roughly 11% per year over the last decade. However, in datacentres, IT equipment only uses half of the total energy, with the
remaining 50% used for cooling and electrical power. The dominating factor is the mechanical cooling plant provided by convection fans, accounting for 33% of the energy consumption. This study will systematically assess the feasibility of an alternative air moving system using piezo actuators for DC based server cooling in comparison to conventional fan technology for server cooling in datacentres. The combined technology of using alternative air cooling and DC power will significantly reduce the demand of electricity required from ICT infrastructures and the cost of operating such systems, cutting the energy use for server cooling by
approximately three quarters compared to the conventional technology. The disruptive innovation will also be commercially analysed against business as usual to facilitate the realisation of its potential.