Solar Lighting Technology for NYC Park Project Holds Potential for Vertical Farms
A canopy of light suspends from the ceiling in a Manhattan warehouse that would have otherwise been completely dark. Instead, three-thousand plants below are basking in sunlight for an experimental trial of a futuristic, underground park. Tropical bromeliads grow side by side with temperate meadow flowers in a unique urban garden lab. Natural sunlight has met interior design, offering a breadth of applications. At the Lowline Lab, a team of designers, botanists, and engineers are testing plants’ response to “solar irrigation”: a tool that redirects solar light. The iridescent canopy, which shines brighter than modern LED lights, poses a new opportunity to vertical farms.
Sunlight was the original ideal for LED grow lights. As manufacturers tinkered with the ratios of wavelengths emitted, they witnessed different responses in plants. Just a few examples include the fact that blue light has shown beneficial for plant growth, red light for fruiting, and yellow light inhibits growth in some plants. Thus, LED has given vertical farmers superior growth conditions compared to natural light. Given the nature of a vertical farm, which is typically indoors, LED is an obvious choice.
Solar irrigation can also emit specific light spectrums. Instead of creating light, however, solar irrigators filter it. If the Lab can filter out ultraviolet radiation, then they can filter other wavelengths for the ideal light cocktail, depending on the plant they’re growing. The light can also be dimmed; If the room was lit to maximum capacity, it would be blindingly strong.
Ed Jacobs, the engineer behind the solar technology, designed the solar canopy to “spread, modulate, and temper” sunlight. The creatively designed mosaic of hexagons and triangles are illuminated by mostly white light and some pink light.
James Ramsey, co-founder of the Lowline, and his team at Raad Studios partnered with Sunportal, a Korea-based technology company, to capture the sunlight. A combination of reflective panels and one diameter parabolas create the “remote skylights” -- heliostats that capture sunlight. These fixtures face the sun’s path and concentrate the light to thirty times its the sun’s natural intensity in a beam. Clear tubes laden with precision lenses and mirrors guide the light indoors and across the ceiling. The light is traveling in empty space, and the tubes protect the mirrors from dust. A specialized “mirror box” helps further redirect the light, and in conjunction with in-line lighting, will adjust to auxiliary lights when necessary. The solar canopy disperses the light.
Forbes Magazine suggested that the Lowline will be “replicated across the world.” Sunportal, which is a relatively young business, is currently working on an installation for an underground passageway in Korea. Parks, passageways, and perhaps one-day food will fall under the benefits of the solar canopy.
SEE THIS VIDEO OF LOWLINE LABS POSTED ON FORBES
The Association for Vertical Farming, Earth Institute, and Columbia University published a report last year titled “Sustainability Certification for Indoor Urban and Vertical Farms: A Sustainable Approach to Addressing Growth in Vertical Farms.” The report sets guidelines that will ensure that vertical farming aims to minimize environmental stresses. The report states challenges associated with vertical farming: “Depending on system design, urban and vertical farms can use a much higher level of electricity due to lighting, and the most innovative lighting systems carry a high cost.”
Solar irrigation bypasses the need to use electricity because it is fueled by the sun. Solar energy is clean and free! There are still costs, however, in developing and implementing the right infrastructure for the operation. The solar canopy at the Lowline is the first of its kind, but some innovation would be needed to craft the appropriate scale for a vertical operation. Even a hybrid system of LED and natural sunlight would significantly lower the cost of the operation.
London, a city that could use a bit more sunlight, is home to Sky-Light Garden, a project being developed by Tom Boyde. Like the Lowline Lab, Boyde is using parabolic mirrors to redirect the sun into otherwise shaded areas. Parabolic mirrors are a multi-century old technology with vast applications, ranging from telescopes to solar cookers. Sky-Light Garden is developing solar reflectors with parabolic mirrors that are designed to match the latitude of a given location. The precise angle of the mirror can redirect up to two hours worth of sunlight a day into a given area, such as a garden. Passive energy technology exemplifies how food can be grown as a renewable energy resource.
Take the same warehouse in Manhattan, and fill it with shelves of edible herbs, lettuces, and vegetables between panels of sunlight. Solar irrigation technology is only in its pilot stage, and it is not yet being applied to commercial food production. Innovation on a timeless energy could be the key to creating more efficient, vertical farms for the future.
Author Bio: Dorothy Farrell is a native New Yorker and studying creative ways to integrate local foods into the urban landscape. In addition to writing for the Association for Vertical Farming, she volunteers with hydroponics and aquaponics education labs and will begin working at a landscape architecture firm this spring. She advocates for clean energy in the locavore movement.
