What is hydroponic agriculture, and how can it benefit from clean energy storage?

Azelio’s Business Development Manager, Georges Nehmeh, shares his insights on hydroponics – an innovative method of horticulture – and explains how storing renewable energy can support the process for all hours of the day.

What does hydroponic agriculture involve?

“Hydroponics is a type of agriculture, or a gardening method that doesn’t use soil, and instead uses mineral nutrient solutions in an aqueous solvent. This represents some appealing advantages, such as high yield, controlling the ecosystem, less water usage, regional diversity, and continuous production all year long – with fewer toxins in the grown plants.”

What are the challenges for hydroponic systems?

“Well, all innovative systems bring some challenges, and to sustain those benefits, hydroponic farms require energy on demand around the clock – both electrical and thermal energy – to manage that micro-climate for optimal growth, which is usually powered by expensive grids or polluting diesel micro-grids. Hydroponics can also often use a lot of plastics and non-renewable components, so it’s an area which is looking to improve its approach to sustainability.”

How can long-duration energy storage be beneficial?

“Hydroponics often involves the use of a closed greenhouse, which is an environment where the user needs to control the climate, and the electrical loads – mainly the artificial lights and fans – which run during night-time. Long-duration storage solutions like Azelio’s TES.POD provide energy on demand from renewable sources like solar PV. We take the clean energy, and store it for long periods of 8-18 hours, so it can be dispatched whenever it’s needed, and the full day cycle is completed – when the sun stops shining, you carry on accessing the clean power.”

“The fact that our solution supplies clean heat as well as electricity also gives it a unique suitability for hydroponics – living things need warmth to grow, and our long-duration thermal storage can sustain that hydroponic ecosystem twenty four hours a day, all year round.”