Investigative Root Cause Analysis for Land Free Urban Microgrid Farm for Food, Water, and Energy

Abstract

Many urban farms are designed to be indoors or use traditional soil or energy generation techniques. Microgrids provide local electricity to a small network of users with power storage. Few urban farms and microgrids are designed and engineered to draw energy from extreme weather events producing electricity and water. The current study examines the feasibility of a self-sufficient, adaptive small-scale microgrid farm harnessing power from multiple renewable energy (solar and wind), and rainwater collection techniques while producing food. This study’s objective is to conduct an investigative Root Cause Analysis of an outdoor hydroponic system named Pangea. The study findings suggest an outdoor hydroponic system shares many defects from exposure to shifts in climatic conditions to poor engineering and design. The concept and technological aspect of this work can be transferred to commercial, large-scale greenhouse.