Recipient Organization
EVICIENT, LLC
1006 BRANCH DR
ALPHARETTA,GA 300043391
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
This project will investigate a Closed Cycle Greenhouse (CCG) as an urban embedded solution for improving food and energy resilience of communities, particularly those that are disadvantaged. CCGs can achieve yields up to 8 times greater than open field agriculture but require significant energy inputs to reject excess heat. Coupling them to energy networks can provide heat to the neighborhoods in which they reside, reducing the CCG's energy costs, and bringing the benefits of lower water consumption, and emissions. The effort will assess economic viability, define technical, social, and regulatory challenges to implementation, and lay the groundwork for a Phase II demonstration.This work will develop a comprehensive model of the greenhouse coupled to a thermal microgrid that distributes energy between the CCG, the community, and assets like heat pumps. Commercial and publicly available tools will be used to predict yields, as well as energetic and economic performance. A preliminary CCG design will be generated to assess technology and workforce requirements, and associated costs. Collaboration with community-based organizations will identify social and regulatory challenges while developing strategies to overcome them.This effort is part of a larger initiative called Oakland Thermal and Renewable Electrification Enterprise to explore sustainable paradigms in distributed low-carbon energy, and economic urban agriculture. OakTREE is located within the disadvantaged neighborhood of West Oakland, CA. Its mission: demonstrate a self-sustaining, scalable, and low-cost modular platform for deployment to disadvantaged communities across the U.S., improving access to jobs, healthy and reliable food supplies, and renewable energy.
Animal Health Component
50%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
0%
Applied
50%
Developmental
50%
Goals / Objectives
1. CCG Energy Modeling1.1. Identify components of greenhouse and specify inputs and outputs to be modeled.1.2. Generate energy model.1.3. Evaluate model functionality, revise and optimize.1.4. Exercise model under several operational scenarios.Objective: Generate energy model that can estimate overall performance (incl. energy inputs, outputs, produce,), of the CCG under a variety of environmental and product scenarios.2. Greenhouse Design and BOM and Supplier Specification2.1. Use greenhouse model outcomes to create a high level greenhouse design.2.2. Specify off-the-shelf greenhouse shell and additional subsystems and components.2.3. Identify suppliers and subcontractors for greenhouse components and assembly.Objective: Generate a greenhouse design of sufficient detail to enable the identification of suppliers and subcontractors and overall pricing in preparation for a Phase II effort.3. Perform Techno-economic Analysis3.1. Generate techno-economic model.3.2. Exercise model, refine, and document results.3.3. Determine techno-economic viability of the CCG concept.Objective: Maximize key metrics such as levelized cost of heat and produce yield given primary model inputs such as CCG dimensions, structure costs, crop choice, solar insolation, etc.4. Generate and Execute Phase I Community Engagement Plan4.1. Generate Phase I engagement plan.4.2. Identify representative CBOs and community stakeholders.4.3. Execute Phase I community engagement plan.4.4. Evaluate outcomes. Identify community concerns and ideas, develop plans for mitigation and incorporation.Objective: Document and evalaute the degree of interest, potential alliances, issues/concerns.5.0 Generate Final Report
Project Methods
Evicient will explore the coupling of CCG, CO2 Heat Pumps, thermal storage, and a local thermal microgrid for the 2.2 acre eco-industrial campus called O2 Artisans Aggregate located in West Oakland, CA, a disadvantaged community. The project will start with modeling the energy inputs/outputs for each of the subsystems and connected buildings together with the predicted CCG thermal/water flows and plant growth/yield. This model will be developed using a combination of softwares including: Thermal Desktop, NREL, POLYSUN, Energy Plus, USDA Virtual Grower. The greenhouse design will specified based on hardware readily available from identified suppliers. The model will then be used to provide the inputs needed to perform a techno-economic analysis to optimize project profitability. Finally, community outreach within the O2 community will be used to gauge degree of interest, strategic partners, and any potential concerns.