Resource Innovation Institute announces CEA Accelerator working group topics

Resource Innovation Institute (RII), a not-for-profit, public-private partnership advancing climate resilience, has announced the topics for its working groups under the CEA Accelerator Project.

Funded through the U.S. Department of Energy Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) and hosted in partnership with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) — a multiprogram national laboratory founded in 1931 and managed by the University of California for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science — each working group brings together members from the public sector, academia, private sector and growers to examine critical issues relevant to the ongoing advancement of CEA.

“The long-term future of CEA depends upon the ongoing work we are doing to identify the tools and processes that best help growers leverage opportunities to increase efficiencies, meet day-to-day challenges and expand the possibilities of current operations,” said RII Executive Director Derek Smith. “This year’s working groups will be focused on finding best practices for CEA operators to implement new technologies in crop management and automation, develop better energy management strategies and glean knowledge from successful CEA efforts in Canada and the Netherlands.”

The working groups include:

• Energy Management Working Group: With a focus on addressing challenges and opportunities related to energy management in CEA, this group will advise on and recommend advanced strategies on issues including strategic energy management, peak reduction, decarbonization and electrification, demand response and distributed generation.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Advanced Robotics Working Group: As AI and robotics CEA applications rapidly advance, this group will collaboratively develop and recommend industry best practices for the effective adoption of these technologies in controlled environment agriculture, including but not limited to sensing and imaging, crop modeling, autonomous growing, data collection and utility-price forecasting for resource optimization.
• Industry Working Group on High-Tech Greenhouse Knowledge Transfer: This group will be dedicated to facilitating the exchange of expertise, best practices and innovative strategies among greenhouse crop producers in the United States and established markets in the Netherlands and Canada. The group’s mission is to empower U.S. producers with the knowledge and tools necessary to leverage high-tech greenhouse design and operations, ultimately enhancing productivity, sustainability and competitiveness within the industry.

Each group will produce a related Best Practices Guide designed to serve as a resource for CEA operators working to manage resources more efficiently. The groups kicked off in May with the initial meeting of the Energy Management Working Group, with work for all groups to be completed by early 2025.

The partnership among RII, IEDO and Berkeley Lab comes on the heels of a years-long collaboration among RII, its members, academic partners and greenhouse and indoor operators that developed a foundation of CEA benchmarking, reports and best practices through a grant funded by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The overarching goal of this partnership is to bring these assets and strategies to market with the ability to scale for growth of the CEA industry.