On Tuesday, Freight Farms, the venture-capital-funded agtech company that has cultivated the market for indoor, hydroponic farming inside shipping containers, announced a new renewable energy partnership. Per a new agreement with Arcadia—the only energy tech firm on the market that offers clean energy access to U.S. homeowners and renters via a subscription model—Arcadia will provide Freight Farms’ U.S. customers with access to clean energy for their daily operations, a move the firms hailed as “the first critical stride to align their respective industries.”
While indoor farming has been a boon for growing produce that is free of pesticides and other chemicals, less consumptive of scarce resources such as water, and relatively impervious to the effects of seasonality and climate change, the industry has a whole has continued to struggle with its dependence on electrical power.
In response, Freight Farms and Arcadia are taking steps to address this pain point by connecting Freight Farm customers to affordable clean electricity at a time when the U.S. power grid remains dominated by fossil fuels. With an Arcadia membership, Freight Farmers can match their electrical use with wind and solar energy, which they say, will help to lift demand for clean energy providers overall.
The power pain point
“Our farmers are passionate about sustainability by nature of their efforts to grow healthy food hyper-locally, but many are unable to adopt clean energy directly based on cost and availability of options in their location,” said Freight Farms CEO Rick Vanzura, in announcing the deal. “With Arcadia, our farmers are able to further reduce their business’ carbon footprint while simultaneously increasing demand for more clean energy in the market, all without disrupting the daily flow of their businesses.”
“Arcadia was built so that anyone anywhere can use our platform to access clean energy,” added Alexa Minerva, Senior Director of Partnerships at Arcadia. “We’re excited about partnering with Freight Farms to make it possible for farmers to reap the benefits of renewables, potentially save money, and combat the effects of climate change.”
According to the companies, Freight Farms’ container model—using up-cycled shipping containers to house indoor farms—makes this partnership uniquely possible within the industry. Indoor farms operated by large agricultural enterprises use too much energy for community solar projects, which are capped at a relatively small size by state law.
The Arcadia partnership is the latest in a series of resource sustainability initiatives at Freight Farms, whose hyper-local farming approach already reduces the resource impact of traditional farmed food production, by drastically reducing or eliminating transportation missions, irrigation, and food waste. The company’s Greenery solution has been on the forefront of technological advances in sustainable water use, its methods using 98.9 percent less water than industrial farming, even achieving water-positive operations in certain locations.
The Greenery’s proprietary fixed lighting arrays also leverage LED market technology to triple light energy output without an increased corresponding energy draw. The result, they say, is a growing platform that pairs the highest potential yields with the greatest resource efficiency.
Earlier this year, Freight Farms raised a successful $15 million Series B funding round, led by Ospraie Ag Science, with continued participation from Spark Capital, a round that brought total funding to the containerized farming startup to more than $28 million. Also this year, the company announced a partnership with institutional food services and catering provider Sodexo to bring its container farms to university campuses across the United States for on-site growth of traceable, pesticide- and herbicide-free produce.
Utility disruptor
Founded in 2014, Washington D.C.-based Arcadia gives customers a “simple, easy, and affordable way” to choose clean energy, connecting their home and community to the highest standards of clean energy, with a 400,000-plus membership base working together in a national movement for clean energy.
Arcadia integrates with 125 utilities in all 50 states, manages 4.5 terawatt-hours of residential energy demand, and is the largest manager of residential community solar subscribers in the U.S. The company says members reduce their carbon footprint by 50 percent just by signing up, with members in open energy markets experiencing 20 percent average savings on their monthly energy bill, compared to traditional retail suppliers.
The company’s most recent investment round, a $30 million Series C funding round, was led by G2VP, with new investments from Macquarie Group and Seek Ventures, along with existing investors Mitsui USA, Energy Impact Partners, Box Group and ValueAct Spring Fund.
