Greenhouse Resource Efficiency Has Become a Market Priority

Resilient harvests require efficient use of resources, and the past year has demonstrated that changing climates and volatile markets will continue to motivate the controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) market to become more efficient. The value of benchmarking performance of greenhouses and educating growers with best practices has never been greater.

Resource Innovation Institute (RII) is a non-profit organization committed to cultivating a better future for all of humanity. Our consortium of members brings perspectives from across the field—uniting architects and engineers, growers and operators, researchers and analysts. Together, we measure, verify, and celebrate the world’s most efficient agricultural ideas. In this article, RII’s Executive Director and Technical Director highlight major RII activities benefiting growers as the organization implements a USDA-funded market transformation project for the CEA industry.

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For the industry to become more sustainable, benchmarks and baselines of diverse cultivation facilities must account for environmental impacts and benefits of CEA crop production. RII has produced industry reports since the 2018 Cannabis Energy Report, which examines the electric energy demands of cannabis greenhouses and indoor farms. In February 2021, we published a companion Cannabis Water Report, which describes the ways water is used to produce cannabis.

The backbone of industry reporting on resource efficiency is data. Benchmarking and analysis platforms like RII’s PowerScore provide specialized insights for the CEA market as the industry evaluates its environmental impacts and prepares for environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) reporting requirements. In 2021, funded by our USDA Conservation Innovation Grant, PowerScore evolved to create key performance indicators on energy, water, and emissions for the most popular protected agriculture crops. Confidentially benchmark your facilities to learn from changes in year-over-year performance.

Educating Growers

For the past five years, RII has been educating growers through our in-person and online Efficient Yields workshops. This year, we helped greenhouse growers across the country growing crops of all types as we launched our online catalog of curriculum and training. Access free publications, register for live workshops, and watch recordings of past training on-demand. We also published five articles with Greenhouse Grower to share tips with cannabis cultivators from our library of resources.

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RII also launched virtual classrooms this year, which combine live events with self-paced education. In spring and summer, Southern California floriculture and food producers attended customized workshops funded by San Diego Gas & Electric. In October and December, cannabis growers in San Luis Obispo, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties learned from global experts in the first two workshops of a series funded by the Tri-County Regional Energy Network. Cannabis growers are encouraged to join the virtual classroom at ResourceInnovation.org/Tri-County and register for the February and April workshops.

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Sharing Best Practices Guidance

Since 2019, RII has been publishing free educational resources for growers to enhance their business success and promote resource efficiency with the input of Working Groups of RII’s Technical Advisory Council. We have shared peer-reviewed and brand-agnostic guidance for cannabis cultivators on topics like LED lighting and HVAC solutions, and this year we formed the Controls Working Group to help us craft recommendations on environmental controls.

In September 2021, we shared the Automation & Controls Best Practices Guide for Cannabis Cultivators. This guide addresses unique considerations for greenhouse growers to effectively use supplemental lighting solutions, control environments with diverse HVAC solutions, and irrigate thoughtfully. Growers and their project partners can depend on RII’s newest best practices guide to learn how to implement DLI controls, determine VPD targets, and plan for recapture and reuse of water in varying types of greenhouses.

Improving Efficiency Programs with Utilities

In 2021, RII continued to educate utilities about improving programs for growers. RII started the year by sharing the Program Design & Market Engagement Primer: For Energy Efficiency Utilities & Program Implementers Serving Cannabis Cultivators with members of the Utility Working Group of RII’s Technical Advisory Council so they could serve more customers and claim persistent energy savings in greenhouses and indoor facilities.

This year we continued to deliver customized recommendations about emerging technologies with online Harvesting Savings webinars so utilities can offer better financial incentives for more types of high-performance equipment:

Shaping Policies for Growers

Governments play a critical role in shaping markets. This role can take the form of supportive incentive-based policies and/or heavy-handed regulation. RII provides a collaborative venue for policy-shaping dialogues with leading governments, utilities, and other influential market actors. To enable states, local jurisdictions, and federal agencies to learn from the actions of frontrunners with energy regulations like Massachusetts, RII produced a Cannabis Energy & Environment Policy Primer with input from the Policy Working Group of RII’s Technical Advisory Council.

As various jurisdictions have established policies for cannabis production, they are setting in place a framework for regulation of all CEA facilities. California has been developing changes to the state’s Title 24 energy code, and the proposed minimum performance of coverings, lighting, and dehumidification equipment for horticultural facilities (Part 6) would affect greenhouses and indoor farms growing not just cannabis, but any crops grown in controlled environments. In no small manner do the actions of states like California and Massachusetts create inertia toward global blueprints on energy and climate policy actions. It is critically important that the CEA value chain engage in these types of conversations going forward.

Transforming the CEA Market

This year, RII has evolved curriculum offerings to serve CEA producers and transform the greenhouse and indoor farming markets with the support of the USDA and a Conservation Innovation Grant in partnership with ACEEE. In May 2021, RII formed the inaugural CEA Leadership Committee to guide the Technical Advisory Council Working Groups and advise on publications related to the CIG grant, like our new series of Best Practices Guides for Controlled Environment Agriculture producers growing food and floriculture crops in greenhouses and indoor farms.

In October, we launched the first of several new Working Groups collaborating with us on best practices guidance. Groups focused on Facility Design and Construction, Lighting, and HVAC topics are developing recommendations for the CEA market throughout winter and new Best Practices Guides will be published throughout 2022.

This fall we also shared the first research insights from our market transformation project. We published our Controlled Environment Agriculture Market Characterization Report: Supply Chains, Energy Sources and Uses, and Barriers to Efficiency and hosted a webinar with USDA and ACEEE, which is available to watch on-demand.

In December we will debut our Market Transformation Strategy based on the guidance of our CEA Leadership Committee. The implementation plan will include detailed approaches on targeting producers by facility type, size, and location to support their transition to more sustainable cultivation practices. In January, we will partner again with the USDA and ACEEE to share elements of the strategy and get feedback from the market.

Moving Forward

Throughout next year, the next series of USDA-sponsored CEA best practices guides and industry reports are being produced on subjects such as Automation & Controls, Irrigation & Water Reuse, Policies & Codes, and Industry Standards. CEA value chain actors are invited to get involved in the RII Technical Advisory Council activities at the Working Group level and as a peer reviewer. Dig deeper by joining RII; learn more at ResourceInnovation.org/TAC.

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