Emission Strategies Inc — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.13

Description

Smarter Agriculture with VOLTTRON™ (SAV)The need for urban food security is driving expansion in controlled environmentagriculture/horticulture (CEA/H) and better solutions are needed to design and operate thesefacilities while optimizing plant health. CEA/H can:• Reduce carbon emissions: proximity to consumption minimizes transportation• Improve resilience: provide healthy fresh food locally if supply chains falter and byreducing pests; also manage food production independently of weather risk and seasons• Increase equity: reach lower-income urban populationsHowever CEA/H costs about 3-5 times as much as open-field traditional farming and usesmore energy.Existing widely-used commercial controls forgreenhouses and CEA/H operate in silos and areIn what ways and how much can andesigned to limit external development opportunities notEclipse VOLTTRON™ integrationcultivate them. Sinc Energy and our interdisciplinary teampropose a paradigm shift towards open API andbenefit greenhouses and CEA/H?interoperability with VOLTTRON a transactional energyplatform.The Phase I project will answer thequestion above using an interdisciplinaryteam addressing these objectives:1: Identify beneficial applications2: Identify ways to interface with eachdevice at the test facility3: Test a small-scale proof-of-conceptsystem4: Evaluate broader applicabilityDescription of the Phase I work:Phase I will begin with creating acustomized energy and facility audittemplate for a consistent approach tocataloging facility equipment processesand permits. The same data will be used toconduct an ASHRAE Level 2 energy audit.Engineers will collaborate with the growerplant scientists and programmers toidentify critical sensors and inputs anddevelop interfaces between the existing devices and Verdicity's SesameV Hub to design the SAV system.Candidus a leading-edge horticultural lighting controls company will connect to a subset of facility lightsand share API with SAV. New sensors will be added and incorporated into the SAV system on a limitedportion of the facility with a focus on insights into water use. The key is to show these diverse inputsworking together on a common platform to create a more complete data pool to drive optimization. Theprototype SAV system will collect data and the team will develop algorithms and test them over a 4-6month period. This will enable prediction for further improvement in key areas of plant health energy useand water use. Calculations will quantify the potential for demand response using the transactionalenergy platform. The potential for VOLTTRON to communicate directly with the utility will be explored.The team anticipates that the platform will be able to communicate readily with any devices that provideAPI and this will generate useful insights into resource use. We anticipate that the data we collect willvalidate our assumptions of at least 20% improvement in energy use and ability to accomplish loadshifting or demand response without compromising plant health. The benefit of data insight with astraightforward user interface includes the ability for the user to select priorities among various optionsbased on preferences as shown on the figure. A fully-commercial SAV system could provide several ofthese benefits for CEA/H facilities.