Neue Technologien für die Produktion von Nahrungsmitteln in urbanen Ballungsgebieten

Abstract

The Institute of Space Systems of the German Aerospace Center (Bremen, Germany) conducted a Concurrent Engineering study to apply its know-how of Controlled Environment Agriculture technologies in space systems to provide valuable spin-off projects on Earth and to provide the first Concurrent Engineering study of a bio-regenerative Vertical Farm to assess its economic feasibility. Vertical Farming is an advanced method of agriculture on Earth, where commercially viable crops are cultivated inside multi-story buildings that mimic several aspects of an ecological system. The conceptualized Vertical Farm of DLR is a building with 37 floors, a square footprint of 44 by 44 meters and a total height of 168 meters. There are 25 plant cultivation floors in the building with multiple stacked plant growth layers on every floor. A total edible biomass output of approximately 13,3 metric tons/day can be achieved with a total grow area of ca. 93.000 m2. Within this presentation, the authors outline the technical design and economic analysis of the Vertical Farm. Furthermore, advantages and challenges of such a farm together with a comparison to traditional agriculture will be outlined.