FEN TECHNOLOGY LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.119999999999999

Description

PD: Stephen Horowitz CO-PD1: Alexandre Lupion CO-PD2: Carlos Repiso CO-PD3: Ikechuku NwagweCompany: FEN TechnologyABSTRACT: VERTICAL FARMING CONTAINER WITH A DAYLIGHTING SYSTEMAmerica has been experiencing a continuous shift of its population towards the urbanareas. This phenomenon is affecting food distribution system across the country. Due to theurban space constraints food needs to be grown in less populated rural areas and transportedoften over long distances to reach consumers. The transport negatively affects the quality andfreshness of the food and contributes to the high food waste levels across the country. Currentlyin the United States between 30-40% of the food supply is wasted.Vertical farming has a high potential for tackling the above problems as it significantlyshortens the distance between farm and consumer reduces the travel distance improves thefood's quality and freshness and decreases the food waste levels. However all currently- available vertical farming solutions rely on artificial lighting to drive the process ofphotosynthesis. This results in approximately 30%-higher energy usage up to 20%-higher priceof the grown food products and significant CO emissions compared to the traditional field2farming. Consequently unit economics are not favorable for this type of technology.In response to these problems FEN Technology is developing a vertical farmingcontainer with an innovative daylighting system.The daylighting system collects the sunlightand transports it through a low-attenuation optic fiber illuminating plants inside the container.FEN Technology will use the Phase I funding for creating a proof-of-concept for the daylightingsystem based on an optic fiber. This solution will allow stackable vertical farming containers tooperate without a significant reliance on artificial lighting therefore significantly reducingoperating costs thus eliminating a considerable hurdle preventing the vertical farmingtechnology from reaching a full commercial success.The research will focus on designing and testing an optimum daylighting system basedon Fresnel lens and optic fibers that allows to transport natural light with 6 times lower lossescompared to the existing daylighting systems used for illuminating offices that are based onplastic fibers.The system will be able to illuminate the plants inside the vertical farm containerwith an intensity of 1500 lux allowing them to grow efficiently.This would drastically improvethe unit economics of the indoor vertical farms so that the produced food can compete with thetraditionally soil-grown products in terms of price and quality. We believe that this daylightingsystem is well-suited for vertical farming due to the high economic returns of efficient lighting inthis application and the reduced environmental impact.