IGS has, as a company, focused from the outset on automation, intelligent system design, and the energy equation of CEA vertical farming. This has garnered them a reputation as one of the leading and most innovative companies in the industry. We took some time to have a chat with them and find out a bit more about how this all works in practice.
FTS: Hello and thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Can you briefly introduce IGS, its history as well as its outlook?
IGS: IGS was founded in 2013 bringing together decades of farming and engineering experience with a vision to revolutionise the indoor growing market. The two founders, farmer Henry Aykroyd and our CTO Dave Scott, had an appetite for innovation and realised that there were significant gaps in the provision of scalable technology for the sector.
Henry knew how to grow and understood the challenges which faced traditional farming: Dave knew how to manage automation and power controls in an industrial environment. The opportunity to bring greater climate control to a growing environment was significant. The ability to manage power consumption was revolutionary. The simplicity of its implementation and use is pivotal.
We opened our first vertical farm demonstrator in Scotland in 2018. Artificial intelligence determines optimal nutritional input and the exact combination or ‘recipes’ of weather: lighting, watering and ventilation. Data is collected continuously and machine learning used to make iterative adjustments, all of which is monitored through a web-based app. The whole Intelligent Growth platform is IOT-enabled to automate system control and management. Our degree of control is so fine that each 6m2 growth tray has its own microclimate. Technical simplicity is at the heart of our mechanical design.
Our commitment to innovation has continued apace and we have evolved the applications of our technology beyond agriculture to create solutions for a wide variety of indoor environments, developing the Intelligent Grid platform.
The Intelligent Grid uses the same IOT-enabled power and controls platform to manage and monitor lights, sensors, cameras and communications for complete climate control and reporting. It too has a very simple, clean and elegant design for application in any commercial building, greenhouse or livestock shed. In contrast to the vertical farm we use our same core technology through the Intelligent Grid to create whole-space macroclimates.
Both IGS demonstrators are based at the James Hutton Institute, a world-renowned crop and plant science research facility. IGS and the Hutton collaborate closely to help advance the understanding of plant science for indoor growing.
Until 2018 IGS had invested approximately £7m in R&D to ensure that its platforms offered the greatest levels of control and achieved levels of economic viability, scale and minimal environmental impact compared to other systems on the market. In 2019 IGS raised £7 million in institutional capital to enter production and take its systems to global markets. We continue to invest over £1m per annum in R&D.
FTS: You have recently shared news of two reseller partnerships – one in the Middle East and one in UK and Italy with TEP Renewables. Can you tell us briefly a bit more about them?
IGS: We have been talking to International Real Estate Partners (IREP), the international facilities management firm for some time in the Middle East and were really pleased to recently sign this referral agreement which is specifically focused on indoor vertical farming for the UAE and Saudi Arabian markets.We also have an opportunity to extend into Asian markets in the future. It gives us a greater capacity to service the Middle East market and secure and deploy vertical farming platforms across the region. IREP’s presence in this market is well established with many existing customers across agriculture, retail and construction and it is a very positive development for both companies we believe.
The agreement with TEP Renewables is an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) or a reseller-type partnership if we identify customers who would like to operate solar powered vertical farms in Italy or the United Kingdom that we will work with them.
FTS: Fantastic! In the end, any vertical farm (indeed any farm!) is only as environmentally sustainable as its energy equations. But it is also only as financially sustainable as its energy cost. You have focused quite intensely on this energy cost question. As we see this dramatic collapse of fossil fuel energy production return on investment, it seems that NOW is the time to have renewable energy options on hand for CEA. Do you believe that renewable energy can be cost-competitive – both in terms of installation, sustainable life-cycle, and with regard to the price of the final product for the consumer?
IGS: We consider a variety of power distribution and supply methods. Renewables can have considerable benefits from an environmental perspective and also specific to grants and other financial support for utilising renewable energy resources.
The“virtual-power plant” capabilities of our systems indicate strong Demand Side Response (DSR) potential. We can manipulate our growth cycles to respond to power availability and respond to inherent instabilities in power networks. This is already having an influence on our engagement in circular energy projects to utilise spare energy for growing and allows for more renewable power sources to be adopted.
FTS: Labour cost is the other biggest outlay for any vertical farm. You have invested heavily in automation. Is the trade-off of increased capital expenditure for automation worth the reduction in operational expenditure for labour, in your experience?
IGS: Absolutely. Driving down the farm gate price is the ultimate goal and while labour costs vary from region to region, we believe that this investment in the automation (and indeed the associated patents) within our growing operations is imperative and differentiates our systems considerably.
FTS: You’ve set about designing modular and intelligent systems. Such a bespoke system offers advantages of course, as we’ve seen above. But it can also present challenges if it cannot be integrated with other equipment and systems later. Do you future-proof your systems to be able to accommodate such updates and integrations over time?
IGS: We have thought about this from the outset, and our systems are designed in a plug and play model, rather than being bespoke as such. Scalability is paramount for our customers and this has been a consideration throughout our R&D development. Rather than using proprietary systems for processes such as sowing and harvesting, we use off-the-shelf equipment and components. This means we can keep startup and maintenance costs down by providing items with which farmers are already familiar. If a section of the vertical farming system needs to be replaced or upgraded, such as a water filter, a lighting panel or a tray, it can be done with almost no interruption.
However, what is also imperative to think about in terms of future proofing, and a hugely important part of our approach, is how we work so closely with the science community to better understand plant light interactions. The level of control we have designed into our hardware systems allows us to flex and adapt as we need to deploy the most up to date plant light information through our software development, which is continuously evolving.
The approach of our software development has also involved maximising security of our systems and ensuring simplicity of operation. This will be continuously updated, but with seamless integration for our customers.
FTS: Along with FTS, you’ve joined a number of other associations and similar collaborative groups. Why is this important to you as a company, and how do you balance the proprietary needs of your company against this desire to cooperate?
IGS: Collaboration and cooperation across this sector is essential. Our vision is that sustainable change will only be delivered not only when we collaborate, but when we are all open and honest about the limitations, as well as the opportunities for this sector. We want to work alongside technology vendors with complementary products, and with growers and producers, supported by science and greater understanding of growing plants indoors, all backed by far-sighted investors.
We firmly believe that through innovation, collaboration and investment we can create an economically and environmentally sustainable global indoor food industry.
FTS: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today. We wish you every success and look forward to working with you in the future.
IGS: Thanks very much indeed. We look forward very much to be part of Farmtech Society as we all move forward in the development and innovation of agricultural technology.
For IGS
David Farquhar
CEO
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