Keeping the lights on

Photos courtesy of farm.one

When growing indoors, you can’t rely on the sun to provide crops with even a single ray of sunshine, so you need to have a lighting partner you can count on. Dan Hubel and Kate Lodvikov, directors of farming at Farm.One in Brooklyn, New York, have found such a partner in Fluence.

At Farm.One, Hubel and Lodvikov grow luxury salad greens, specialty herbs, edible flowers and microgreens in a vertical farm. Hubel and Lodvikov say that figuring out what to do with lighting is a lot, but Fluence made it easy and quick for them.

When the company launched in 2016, Farm.One used early models of the Fluence RAZR lights, and the farm has kept using Fluence lights ever since. “We tested them out and once we realized that we were really happy with them, we decided to fully build out our Tribeca farm using them,” says Lodvikov.

“One of the reasons why we always pick Fluence lights is that they’re so modular and easy to install,” adds Lodvikov. “The lights themselves are really sleek and they’re also lightweight, which is great for installation.”

Both say that Fluence’s lights are energy efficient, meaning that Farm.One saves money on electricity and HVAC costs.

According to Hubel and Lodvikov, Fluence’s lights help facilitate fast, even and predictable growth in their plants. Additionally, the lights are always a uniform color. This consistency is key to running an indoor growing environment.

Another advantage is that Fluence lights come with their own control panel system. Fluence’s lights are also a plug-and-play installation, so Hubel and Lodvikov don’t have to pay engineers or contractors to come in and install them. These engineering aspects help Farm.One save both time and money.

But, importantly, Fluence brings more to the table than just technology. Hubel and Lodvikov love dealing with Fluence’s people, who are available and ready whenever they need help.

Hubel recalls a time when Farm.One was in the middle of an installation right before an important photoshoot. While setting up, they realized that they were one ballast short, so they weren’t going to be able to set up all the lights they needed to for the photoshoot. “We called Fluence and they overnight shipped us a ballast, but because it was a weekend, we weren’t going to get it in time,” Hubel explains. “What they did, though, was run a stress test of the lights in their facility on one ballast for two days straight through the weekend. So before Monday, they emailed us and let us know that we could run all of these lights off the one ballast.”

“It worked perfectly,” Hubel says. “If we didn’t have the support of Fluence, we probably would not have been able to hit that goal.”