BALTIMORE – Leading, national energy solutions provider CPower Energy Management today announced that it will support Scale Microgrid Solutions, a leading provider of distributed clean energy and microgrid platforms, to deliver energy management services to vertical commercial farming company, Fifth Season. Scale and CPower will provide Fifth Season with utility bill savings, energy resilience and reliable access to clean energy, while generating revenue by offering energy and ancillary services to the PJM market. This project represents CPower’s expansion in the rapidly growing indoor agriculture sector, an industry that will help to address emerging food security concerns as global food demand is expected to increase 60 percent by 2050.
“Indoor agriculture and vertical farming innovators can benefit financially from helping keep their community’s grid balanced, and the most innovative, like Fifth Season, do look to leverage this efficiency in their business operations and production,” said Mathew Sachs, senior vice president – strategy and business development, CPower. “Our partnership with Scale Microgrid allows Fifth Season to unlock value from their distributed energy resources, ensuring reliability and achieving energy resilience, without disrupting their operations.”
Scale Microgrid Solutions will integrate DER assets including solar PV panels, lithium-ion batteries, a natural gas generator and demand response to create a solution that’s both immediately impactful and scalable to meet Fifth Season’s needs. CPower will then leverage market-based insights to optimize and facilitate the microgrid’s participation in several local PJM programs.
“Our indoor agriculture facility in Braddock, Pennsylvania uses robotics and fully autonomous operations to consume healthy, good-for-the-planet food,” said Brac Webb, COO/CTO and co-founder, Fifth Season. “Our Scale energy system and CPower demand response creates opportunities to be just as resourceful with our energy management.”
“In addition to reducing the facility’s GHG emissions footprint by the equivalent of 39 passenger vehicles driven in a year, Scale’s system at Fifth Season operates in various ancillary services to the electric grid to help save them money, and will enable mission critical operations to continue during utility outages.” said Ryan Goodman, CEO and Co-Founder of Scale Microgrid Solutions. “This is our second successful project using CPower in this space and we look forward to additional opportunities in the market.”
