Grow LED lamp for vertical farming company
Problem
A respectable vertical farming company was in the process of building a new 5000 sq. m farm in Europe for growing leafy greens. Their problem was that their existing grow lamps were responsible for a third of their capital expenses, half of their operational expenses and had very long lead time from Asia. The company realized that if it wanted to stay competitive it would need to lower their operational cost and reduce risk.
Solution
Nubis was contacted to investigate the market for LED lamps and asked to investigate what could be done to lower the cost of operation without increasing the capital investment. Nubis got into contact with various LED manufacturers and confirmed the existence of new generations of diodes but there were no existing manufacturers using those new technology. Nubis ended up helping the company with a unique tailored design of a new lamp. Nubis conducted various design analysis, including optimized spectrum for leafy greens, light distribution analysis, electrical, EMC and heat simulations, water protection, mechanical and structural designs, control electronics, cabling and power supplies. Then Nubis did PCB designs, made agreements with suppliers, found a manufacturer and assembly partners and in the end delivered a lamp with 250% more efficiency for the same capital cost than their previous lamps with much shorter lead time and lower risk.
Conclusion
A first prototype of the lamps was delivered after only 2 months and a short production of first batch delivered 2 weeks after. The customer was extremely satisfied with the outcome and realized that it had a very valuable and unique product on its hands that it could also sell to any 3rd party.