Vermont Greenhouse Transformed with Customized Lighting Solution
Finn & Roots, a Vermont-based greenhouse producer of leafy greens, herbs, and cucumbers, is seeing record harvests in 2024 after retrofitting their farm with a customized lighting solution from Libra Design.
The lighting retrofit increased Finn & Roots’ crop yields and quality, facility capacity, and energy efficiency to meet surging demand for the farm’s eco-grown produce while offsetting high operational costs. A collaboration with Energy Resources Integration (ERI), a private engineering firm specialized in decarbonization and energy efficiency, helped benchmark the farm to identify efficiency opportunities while helping secure grants and rebates from federal and state funding to cover half of the project costs.
Inside of the Finn & Roots greenhouse in Northern Vermont. | Photo: Libra Design
Located 17 miles south of the Canadian border in Northern Vermont, Finn & Roots provides local markets with produce from their deep winter greenhouse yet was struggling to meet demand for their produce during the winter and shoulder seasons. A combination of limited natural light (Vermont receives a daily light integral (DLI) of just 7.5 mol/m2/day during the winter) and failing first-generation LEDs all but ensured crop production came to a standstill for several months of the year.
Within the first month of deploying the new LED systems from Libra in January 2024, Finn & Roots dramatically increased cucumber yields and improved leafy green cycle time by 12.5%. Working with Libra Design and ERI, the company was able to demonstrate an annual energy savings of 40,000 kWh with the new lighting equipment, while also installing a new solar array to power the farm and further increase the energy resilience and sustainability. Furthermore, the collaboration led to Finn & Roots securing state funding from Efficiency Vermont and federal funding from the USDA Rural Energy For America Program (REAP) for the lighting and solar equipment cost and reduce the payback period of the project by more than 70%.
“The difference between the old lights and the new Libra lights is planetary,” said Holly Counter-Beaver, owner and operator of Finn & Roots. “For a greenhouse of our size to take it to the next level in terms of our capacity to grow, the amount of yields that we grow and the quality and visual appeal of what we grow is a game changer.”
Gretchen Schimelpfenig | Photo: Libra Design
“We were able to model DLI, show how annual hours of lighting use would result in over 40,000 kWh per year of savings,” said Gretchen Schimelpfenig, senior energy engineer at ERI. “I’m seeing that many folks are working with smart manufactures like Libra to solve the energy problems and reduce that impact on their profitability so they can improve their unit economics.”
Finn & Roots’ new lighting solution is a 770-watt customized fixture based on the Libra High-Flux LED Module emitting a broad spectrum at 2,150 µmol/s for an impressive efficacy of 2.8 µmol/J. Libra provided a tailored lighting plan to Finn & Roots which delivers a photosynthetic photon flux density (PPFD) of 185 µmol/m2/s over leafy greens and herbs and 475 µmol/m2/s over cucumbers for a year-round, consistent, optimal DLI of 17 and 30 respectively. With a passive thermal management system, wet-location IP66 rating and aluminum housing, the lighting fixture is designed for years of maintenance free operation backed by a five-year manufacturer’s warranty.