"Arcadia was built so that anyone anywhere can use our platform to access clean energy," added Alexa Minerva, Senior Director of Partnerships at Arcadia. "We're excited about partnering with Freight Farms to make it possible for farmers to reap the benefits of renewables, potentially save money, and combat the effects of climate change."
Freight Farms and Arcadia have partnered to provide Freight Farms’ U.S. customers with access to clean energy for their everyday operations. With this partnership, Freight Farms and Arcadia are taking the first critical stride to align their respective industries, moving indoor farming into a more sustainable future.
While vertical farming has made significant advancements in resource efficiency, the industry has continued to struggle with the sustainability of electrical power use.
Together, Freight Farms and Arcadia are taking an important step towards addressing this limitation by connecting Freight Farmers to affordable clean power at a time when the nation’s grid is dominated by fossil fuel. With an Arcadia membership, Freight Farmers can choose to match their electrical use with wind and solar energy, which will also help create more demand for clean energy providers overall.
Without changing anything in their day-to-day operations. Freight Farms’ customers can now connect the utility for their container farm, like this Freight Farms Greenery—to Arcadia to match 100% of the farm’s electrical usage with clean energy.
“Our farmers are passionate about sustainability by nature of their efforts to grow healthy food hyper-locally, but many are unable to adopt clean energy directly based on cost and availability of options in their location,” said Rick Vanzura, Freight Farms’ CEO. “With Arcadia, our farmers are able to further reduce their business’ carbon footprint while simultaneously increasing demand for more clean energy in the market, all without disrupting the daily flow of their businesses.”
Freight Farms’ modular container model makes this partnership uniquely possible within the indoor farming industry, as large agricultural enterprises use too much energy for community solar projects, which are capped at a relatively small size by state law.
Connecting to clean energy
Without changing anything in their day-to-day farm operations, Freight Farms’ customers can now connect their utility through Arcadia in two minutes. Upon connection, Arcadia will immediately begin matching 100% of the Freight Farm’s electricity by purchasing an equivalent amount of wind and solar energy in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs).
The result reduces Freight Farmers’ carbon footprint to one-quarter of industrial farming operations. Based on location and other factors, Arcadia can even help farmers save on their electricity bills, providing both a competitive and financial advantage to using clean energy for their business.
Memberships are available in two options for little to no cost based on location: As enabled by state law, farmers located in Massachusetts, Rhodes Island, New York, Illinois, Colorado, Maryland, and Maine can sign up to access the community solar power market, and will see a reduction in their electricity bills. All other U.S. Freight Farmers can sign up for a low fee per month to access clean energy.
