Defra Funding Call : Farming Futures – Environmental Resilience
23rd June 2023
An opportunity to receive significant government research funding to enable you to explore new solutions that “resolve key issues affecting the sector, where sustainable and resilient farming solutions can mitigate climate challenges and increase productivity”
Anticipated Initial Return on Investment < one year.
Project str1: Feasibility – 50% to 70% funding available.
Project str2: Research – 50% to 70% funding available.
Projects must seek to significantly improve:
- Productivity.
- Sustainability and environmental impact of farming.
- Progression towards net zero emissions.
- Longer term resilience.
- Food security.
Projects must:
- Demonstrate environmental benefits and societal impact.
- Ensure solutions are closely aligned with industry priorities to
deliver business orientated and transformative opportunities. - Encourage dissemination and knowledge exchange.
IES can model the farm/facility (for livestock or plant) and determine the current baseline of energy performance and IEQ (Indoor Environmental Quality) of the farm.
Future scenarios can be developed and incorporated into the model to perform simulations for future
performance using also future weather conditions.
Several technologies can be assessed regarding their impact on energy, water and IEQ improvement.
Monetisation of the effect of those improved conditions on productivity and long-term resilience in tandem with future energy prices projections can result in their technoeconomic optimisation and feasibility.
The farm and its processes could be twinned in the IES cloud-based digital environment by incorporating
dynamic data recorded from on-site SCADA/BEMS and IoT sensing and metering equipment and off-site digital platforms (e.g. weather).
The IES digital twin can deliver a number of services based on combined physics-based dynamic simulations and AI data analytics including:
Single-pane-of-glass farm operations dashboard.
- Indoor environmental quality (thermal, air quality, lighting) optimisation.
- Energy and water consumption optimisation.
- Sustainability and carbon reporting and certification.
- Decarbonisation and environmental resilience roadmaps.
- Commissioning and M&V of environmental resilience and decarbonisation technologies.
- Future resilience investment planning and risk assessment.
What IS a Digital Twin?
A virtual replica of a building and processes which gathers real data and uses physics-based simulations to respond and behave in the same way as its real-world counterpart.
Allows you to analyse how your buildings and associated infrastructure are performing now, gain insights into how they should be performing and explore different scenarios to understand the impacts of future changes.
Provides investment-grade decision support information to improve asset performance, influence future process and building designs and retrofit to reduce investment risks.
IES Solutions help you identify and deliver:
- Energy use reductions.
- Energy cost reductions.
- ESG monitoring and reporting.
- Waste heat management reductions.
- Carbon reductions and Net-Zero road mapping.
- Manufacturing process efficiency improvements.
- Building efficiency improvements.
Increase production efficiency, reduce energy use, lower energy costs & divest from fossil fuels with Net Zero road mapping and ESG reporting.
Your Return on Investment.
Immediate Energy Efficiency Gains.
The process of gathering and collating your built environment and manufacturing process data itself will identify immediate energy and process efficiency gains hidden within. These simple gains alone often cover the capital cost of your investment.
“What If?” Scenario Planning and Strategic Views.
Once the data is collated and your virtual Digital Twin is built, you can run unlimited engineering, control or behavioural scenarios through the model without any risk to the business. You will identify significant and strategic deliverable improvements with fact based analysis.
A Quantifiable, Measurable and Defined Net Zero Road Map.
You will have the tools at hand to plan ahead towards your Net Zero targets. Your road map will be fact based, reportable, costed, measurable and robust.
Deadline for applications is 19th July.
Contact Adam Goves (adam.goves@iesve.com) to arrange an initial discussion to explore the opportunity.
Visit Integrated Environmental Solutions | IES (iesve.com) for more information on IES products and services.
