Energy cost reduction by shifting electricity demand in indoor vertical farms with artificial lighting

The article focuses on the energy demand optimisation of indoor vertical farms (IVFs) with artificial lighting using load shifting. The solution in agriculture of IVFs attracts interest; however, operating them without a plan is costly and inefficient. In this research, it was experimentally proven that by electricity load shifting on IVFs, it can result in a 16–26% reduction of artificial lighting costs for all months throughout the year, by simply selecting the times of the day that the required darkness will be provided to the plants (in this experiment, basil). Therefore, one could understand that mass deployment of IVFs within cities could minimise the operational costs, decrease CO2 emissions – since for a large number of leafy products the production will take place in cities - and increase the number of agriculture-based jobs offered in the urban environment. Cash flow analysis of various scenarios revealed that possible investors in indoor vertical farms, in most of the cases, have a full payback period of their investment amount in less than 9 years, while in the majority of the cases the repayment period is as low as 2 years.