Vertical farming and power consumption are actually one of the most important topics in the industry, but it is usually given little attention or glossed over with buzz words, at least, it seems to me that people prefer not to throw out the hard numbers.
Time and again, the topic of energy consumption comes up in online discussions and comments, and there's nothing to sugarcoat: Yes, LEDs need power, and you need a lot of power.
Because of what we save in agriculture and the closed cultivation system in the vertical stack of racks, we consume again. Because you can use the sunlight horizontally, but in a stack, you need LEDs because the light can not shine through, which is logical.
Now, most of the time, people don't care much about how much electricity is consumed, and that's not a criticism of the industry now nor of the consumer. Who cares if the salad you bought was transported by a car with an electric motor or an internal combustion engine?
In the industry, people always like to talk about the fact that you can run the farms with renewable energies, and that sounds romanticized and also nice and comfortable, but the reality is a different one. Therefore, it's worthwhile to follow this suggestion:
If you are planning a vertical farm, then plan a power plant as well
Because a vertical farm is not a farm but a high-tech facility that must produce effectively and efficiently. Backyard experiments are just not that.
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