V-FAST

The 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.