True Leaf Farms is the grower-owned processing facility and brand of Church Brothers Farms, a leading fresh produce farming/shipping company in the Salinas Valley. Co-owned between the Church and Gill families, True Leaf Farms operates year-round and produces more than 400,000 cartons of produce per week. True Leaf Farms was looking for energy resilience, independence, and cost benefits. The answer: to build an onsite microgrid that consolidated existing services to take advantage of primary, firm power. The project also included provisions for growth as demand increases over time.
Concentric Power installed full microgrid infrastructure at True Leaf Farms including genset, switchgear transformers, and medium voltage power distribution equipment. This is integrated and run by the Concentric Power intelligent microgrid controller that allows both the Concentric and True Leaf teams to continuously monitor, control, and optimize fuel and electricity use.
Concentric Power also installed their standard modular 2.0 MW cogeneration unit. The natural gas genset feeds into the microgrid, part of which includes a waste heat recovery system that integrates into the existing ammonia refrigeration.
True Leaf Farms has the ability to produce 2 megawatts of electric power to help run the processing facility, while at the same time reducing its carbon emissions by 25%.