10076759V-FAST - Vertical Farming And Storage TechnologiesClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKThe V-FAST (Vertical Farming And Storage Technology) project aims to demonstrate a new type of infrastructural hub at the heart of the food-energy-water nexus. Focussing on the inextricable link between food and energy, this project aims to accelerate the decarbonisation targets, and broader environmental goals, of both sectors through cooperation and making the most of interdependent relationships, within and between each domain. The co-location of a new type of pumped hydroelectric energy storage with controlled environment agriculture could open up thousands of potential sites, where the power of water can regulate the intermittency of renewable generation, to serve the needs of weather-agnostic farms growing energy-hungry crops for protein-hungry people. Food produced will feed into local supply-chains all year round at the same time as having global environmental benefits by preventing the conversion of vital ecosystems into farmland, eliminating the emissions of transport and field mechanisation, and avoiding the impact of agricultural chemicals entering local ecosystems. Over the course of this two-year feasibility study, this partnership between vertical farmers Vertegrow, energy storage innovators RheEnergise, leading agricultural researchers at the James Hutton Institute, and controlled environment agriculture members network UK Urban AgriTech, will tackle all aspects of the feasibility assessment: the cultivation of novel crops in vertical farms and the assessment of their nutritive value; the sizing, siting and integration of RheEnergise's High-Density Hydro storage; the environmental & economic sustainability of these food-energy systems; and the commercial landscape and routes from farm to plate. The completion of this comprehensive feasibility work, and any subsequent practical demonstrator project, will mark a major step towards realising the longstanding ambitions of controlled environment agriculture to contribute meaningfully to a sustainable, decarbonised food system, as well as revealing many lessons applicable to energy storage collocations in other sectors. By completing this work, the consortium will move one step closer to delivering sustainable, decarbonised food and energy directly to local communities.