Ultra Yield Solutions: Matchmaking Hydropower Dam Owners With Indoor Growers
July 17, 2024 Commercial electricity rates are high these days, and all indications are they will continue to increase. Farmers who want to take advantage of indoor agriculture’s year-round, consistent growing conditions are finding it challenging to create profitable businesses with high, unpredictable energy costs looming on the balance sheet.
Ultra Yield Solutions (UYS), a New York-based lighting and energy management company, believes that its TransFARMative program could soon offer a solution to the problem of high and volatile energy prices for some indoor growing operations.
Through this program, UYS will match hydropower dam owners with CEA companies ready to open their next facility. The hydropower owner will lease part of their property and sell power to indoor growers above the wholesale electricity rate but below the commercial electricity rate. This is a win-win for both parties, as revenue increases for hydropower dam owners, while CEA growers pay a significantly lower rate than the utility company’s commercial rate.
The TransFARMative program has other plans to make fresh produce more accessible in the Northeast. Considering the high number of unused offices and school buildings since the onset of COVID-19, turning these vacant spaces into urban farms would be beneficial to any city. UYS has the expertise and partners to make vacant spaces food-producing profit centers.
“CEA brings fresher, healthier food to population centers,” says Chris Brown, CEO of UYS. “And municipalities can’t afford to knock vacant buildings down. They just sit there empty, so why not turn them into indoor farms that provide nutrition to communities and add jobs to the local economy?”
UYS is in the early stages of project development and is currently interviewing CEA companies and hydropower dam owners to take part in the first phase of the project.
What do you think of this initiative? Let us know in the comments.