Frazer-Nash to provide engineering support to sustainable greenhouse project

Sundrop Farms is a pioneer in sustainable agriculture for the arid world, developing, constructing and operating greenhouses in locations that have little or no access to arable land, fresh water sources, grid electricity or natural gas.

The company is undertaking construction of a landmark 20 ha greenhouse in Port Augusta, South Australia, where tomatoes will be grown with solar power and desalinated seawater.

Crops will be grown in state-of-the-art greenhouses using concentrated solar power to provide heat, power and water for year-round production. The $150m+ project will see Sundrop Farms producing 15,000 tonnes of fresh vegetables annually.

Sundrop Farms has selected Frazer-Nash Consultancy to provide Owner’s Engineer support to the project. Frazer-Nash will be providing practical and technical guidance to the design, testing and acceptance of the project during construction and commissioning through into operations.

“Our engineers frequently apply their skills at the cutting edge of technology development in the energy, resources, transport, industrial and defence sectors; the team is thoroughly enjoying the challenge of applying their world-class engineering skills to growing tomatoes!” said Frazer-Nash Systems Engineering Lead Dr Ian Watson.