Leadership Team Aims to Boost Water, Energy Efficiency in CEA Production
June 10, 2021 Resource Innovation Institute (RII) has assembled a senior level of its Technical Advisory Council to support its USDA-funded project titled Data-driven Market Transformation for Efficient, Sustainable Controlled Environment Agriculture.
The new Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Leadership Committee, comprised of a range of subject matter experts in CEA, will advise the development of a Market Characterization Report that will analyze the emerging controlled environment horticultural supply chain to determine opportunities to increase energy and water efficiency in cultivation.
“Market characterization is a critical first step in a coordinated effort to transform an economic sector toward efficient production,” says Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute. “This is the first such supply chain assessment in CEA. We appreciate these leaders for stepping forward to support this important effort.”
The Market Characterization Report represents the first publication that RII will deliver as part of its work on a three-year USDA Conservation Innovation Grant designed to advance resource efficiency in CEA, a diverse, expanding market that includes greenhouses and vertical farms growing a range of crops, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries. RII is partnering with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to deploy the grant.
The CEA Leadership Committee is providing input on key market characterization issues including:
- Supply chain. Describing key market actors, barriers to energy efficiency, and the best leverage points for market interventions.
- Energy use. Describing the energy used by producers (including on-site renewable energy, microgrids, and back-up generation).
- Advantages of efficiency. Describing the energy and non-energy benefits realized through implementation of efficiency projects.
- Baseline identification. Describing key market baselines to be used in evaluating the impact of the market transformation initiative over time.
The organizations represented on RII’s CEA Leadership Committee include:
- American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
- American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers
- CEA Consultancy
- Ceres Greenhouses
- Energy Solutions
- Fifth Season
- Fluence by OSRAM
- Grodan
- Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
- Oregon Association of Nurseries
- Priva
- Resource Innovations
- Schneider Electric
- Signify
- UVM Extension Services
- Zartarian Engineering
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