LivingIsland (Hungary)

  • LOCATION

    Budapest, Hungary

  • FUNCTION

    Food production

  • VALUE

    First vertical farm in Budapest

  • PARTNERS

    Budapest Waterworks

Biopolus has developed a controlled urban farming factory system, called aero.green, which uses an integrated mixed system of three primary urban farming techniques: hydroponics, nutrient film technology (NFT), and aeroponics. The Biopolus plant factory is a modular system, one that is scalable and customizable, with optimized growth modules for each plant type. A specialized feeding and lighting schedule (with ideal wavelengths and intensities) is formulated for each crop, creating the highest quality product. Crop types can include specialty, exoctic produce (including microgreens and heirloom varieties), propagating material for open field agriculture, medicinal and cosmetic plants, and flowers.

Biopolus installed the first vertical farm in Budapest using the aero.green system with the purpose of pilot testing the system as a first step toward commercialization. The facility was used to monitor and develop the various growing methods. The energy efficiency and the effectiveness of the individual system components (lights, plant feeding, temperature, and humidity control) were also monitored and recorded for plant factory development.

The pilot facility operated from 2016 to 2018. This special system produced healthy vegetables all year, using only 5% of water required by greenhouses.