Decentralized Control of Crop Growth Conditions in Vertical Farms Under Dynamic Energy Markets
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The growing global population and the increasing scarcity of arable land highlight the urgent need for reliable and efficient food production systems. With their controlled environments, vertical farms (VFs) offer a promising solution for sustainable food security. Nevertheless, their high energy demands call for innovative approaches to optimize energy consumption while maintaining optimal growing conditions. This paper introduces a novel control-oriented model for VFs, capturing the interactions between crop growth conditions and energy consumption. To address the high energy demand of VFs, the model is integrated into a dynamic energy market characterized by time-varying energy prices and a demand response scheme, which includes a discrete reward to encourage flexible energy consumption. Then, centralized and decentralized receding horizon control approaches are proposed to minimize the energy cost of the VF while ensuring optimal crop growth. Experimental evaluations on real systems of varying scales demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches in reducing costs and ensuring sustainable agricultural practices.
Institutions: Aalto University, Polytechnic University of Bari
Language: English
Topic: Smart Grid Energy Management
Subfield: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,645
OpenAlex ID: W4414499288