How Australia’s energy network could power a sweet supply of strawberries year-round

Nothing tastes more like an Aussie summer than fresh, sweet strawberries. According to Hort Innovation, 74% of Australian households purchased strawberries, buying an average of 365g per shopping trip. With demand steadily increasing, keeping up with supply is a challenge with traditional strawberry farming dependent on the weather, regional growing conditions and labour availability.  

UK-based agritech startup FlexFarming is on a mission to tackle food security, sustainability and energy costs while producing delicious strawberries year-round, no matter the weather.   

Using 90% less land, 95% less water, and renewable energy sources FlexFarming is combining Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) with their Farm as a Battery (FAB) solution to ease the financial challenges of scaling and developing TCEA facilities.  

TCEA takes growing crops in a controlled environment a step further by controlling every element of the growing environment, including light, watering, CO2 levels, and nutrient delivery, while Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) focuses on controlling key aspects like light, humidity, and temperature. 

The CEO of Flex Farming, Ahmad Mohseni, has a background in energy systems, which sparked his interest in TCEA strawberry production.  

“I was looking at different industries to see how we can solve the problem around energy cost and CO2 emissions, and I came across vertical farming,” Ahmad explained. 

“While vertical farming offers many sustainability benefits, the key barrier for most producers is the cost of electricity. 

“Strawberries continue growing outdoors under a constantly changing environment. I realised by using an indoor environment, and mimicking how strawberries grow outdoors, the electricity load is actually quite flexible. This means that we can be smarter with electricity load management. 

“By utilising more electricity when it’s cheaper and less when the price is higher, then putting the excess back into the grid, this reduces the total electricity cost of vertical farms. We then thought ‘why not use this flexible load to balance the grid?.” 

FAB dynamically adjusts the growing environment in response to fluctuations in renewable energy supply. When there's an oversupply of electricity, which would normally go to waste or need expensive battery storage, the system takes advantage of the surplus by simulating sunny days, which speeds up plant growth. Conversely, during low electricity periods, it slows things down by simulating cloudy days to conserve energy. 

“By treating vertical farming as a subset of the energy industry, we’ve developed a system which sits between our vertical farm and the energy market. We forecast what the energy price is going to be for the next day and then adjust our growing ‘recipe’ based on the energy market. We’ve been able to reduce our electricity costs by up to 50%, which makes vertical farming a viable option for crops such as strawberries,” Ahmad explained. 

“We’re now producing delicious and sustainable strawberries all year-round. Our strawberries taste the way consumers expect them to, and the quality is consistent,” Ahmad confirmed.  

Australia’s strawberry industry valued at $507.5m in FY2023/24, is bursting with opportunity.  However, according to Ahmad, due to growing conditions in Australia, growers choice of variety is limited and usually select varieties based on resilience, not the taste.   

“The Australian strawberry market is very interesting,” suggests Ahmad.  

“With 90% of strawberry production happening in the field, growers face challenges of high humidity, heat and extreme weather variations. Because of this, they usually select a variety based on its resilience rather than its taste. 

“With vertical farming, you can control those factors, meaning its possible to grow the best tasting varieties and offer a more premium product to consumers.” 

Ahmad also thinks that the Australian energy market presents a unique opportunity. With the use of solar steadily increasing in Australia, during daylight hours a surplus of electricity is being generated causing plant operators to offer electricity at negative prices.  

“Every five minutes, the price of electricity changes in Australia based on the supply and demand of electricity. As a matter of fact, between 20 to 30% of the time, the price of electricity is negative in Australia,” Ahmad explained.   

“The price goes negative to encourage people to take it out, because there is so much electricity being generated. 

“What we have is a mechanism that can benefit from the surplus of electricity, supports grid resiliency, and enables security supply to offer something tastier, which is the strawberry,” Ahmad said.  

FlexFarming is forming partnerships to establish a sustainable strawberry production facility in Australia with significant interest in setting up the first facility in South Australia.  
To help adapt and optimise the system for local strawberry varieties the Government of South Australia and SARDI have also offered support. 

To further scale this innovation, FlexFarming are looking to partner with growers, investors and energy providers. 

“Given the high capital costs of the facilities, we’re interested in working strategically with stakeholders who are committed for the long haul,” Ahmad said. 

By expanding into Australia, FlexFarming aims to drive innovation, support research and development, and strengthen the agrifood sector. 

“We want to produce high quality strawberries and make them available for all consumers in the mainstream market,” Ahmad noted.  

“We’re not replacing the existing supply, but rather, complementing it. In doing so, we’re taking a step toward more sustainable agriculture with smart use of renewable energy while contributing to grid balance.”