The energy footprint of vertical farms raises legitimate questions about their environmental impact. Furthermore, in a time of surging electricity prices, the economic viability of indoor producers is questioned, as electricity costs take a significant share of their operating expenses. At Orius, we are strongly dedicated to building energy-efficient systems and keeping them up-to-date from a technology standpoint. We’re also developing innovative solutions to reduce energy usage of controlled-environment crop production. In this article we’ll provide some actual figures about our current systems and share our roadmap towards an even more efficient future.

Cultures in controlled environments have seen a boom this past decade. While investments have been mostly focused on projects in the food sector, with salads and herbs as go-to products, growing more complex crops has become feasible and this opens up fields of opportunities ; it requires, however, a different approach to technology. We explore how and why in this article