SmartAg Controls: Incentivizing Efficiency & Yields

Greenhouse lighting represents a major electricity end use in controlled environment agriculture, and utilities increasingly look to advanced controls to reduce energy and demand without harming crops. Daily light integral (DLI)–based controls advertise smarter, crop-focused lighting that responds to actual light delivered to plants. However, real-world performance data remain limited, especially for non-cannabis crops and greenhouses that do not use supplemental lighting year-round.This project evaluates whether DLI-based smart lighting controls can reduce lighting energy use and peak demand in commercial greenhouses without compromising crop productivity, and what practical barriers limit their performance and adoption. The work focuses on a vendor-installed DLI control system in a commercial ornamental greenhouse and aims to inform California utility programs, as well as Title 24 code development.TRC, a third-party EM&V team, monitored the DLI-based system and a baseline greenhouse with conventional timer-based operation. The team selected and installed sensors, collected high-resolution lighting and environmental data, and analyzed lighting energy use, demand profiles, and available crop and environmental indicators. The team also gathered structured feedback from growers, vendors, and utility stakeholders.Commissioning delays, equipment malfunctions, and a shift from the planned daylight-extension strategy to nighttime interruption prevented full DLI-based autonomous control. As a result, the study could not quantify energy savings or peak demand reductions under true DLI-driven operation, nor could it draw meaningful conclusions about crop productivity impacts. Baseline data showed that lighting needs and potential savings are strongly crop- and season-dependent. Several ornamental crops required supplemental lighting only in winter, in contrast to Title 24 models that assume year-round lighting based largely on cannabis data. During a brief five-day period when the site considered the system “fully commissioned,” lighting energy use dropped by 26 percent relative to baseline, but this reduction resulted from manual shortening of lighting schedules rather than DLI control.The study concludes that DLI-based greenhouse lighting controls remain a promising but unproven strategy in most commercial settings. Robust, early commissioning; simpler, grower-aligned control designs; crop-specific program and code assumptions; and better control of environmental and operational variables all appear necessary before utilities can rely on DLI-based controls for predictable savings. Programs and code development should treat these systems as an emerging technology that requires further testing, clearer protocols, and stronger implementation support rather than as a near-term deemed measure.