Every vertical farm turns most of its lighting electricity into heat. This free vertical farming waste heat calculator estimates how much that heat is worth, both as a sellable low-temperature heat stream and as avoided cooling cost, using the same peer-reviewed benchmarks as our full guide to vertical farming waste heat. Enter your own production and energy figures to get a facility-specific result in seconds.
What is your facility's LED heat actually worth?
Enter your own numbers below to see, in real time, how much heat your lighting generates, what that heat could be worth if captured and sold, and how much you could save on your own cooling bill. All defaults come from the peer-reviewed benchmarks used in our full article on vertical farming waste heat, and you can adjust every assumption yourself.
Your facility
Your results, updated live
This calculator uses the same methodology and sources as our article "The Overlooked Revenue Stream Hiding in Every Vertical Farm's LED Heat". All default values are drawn from peer-reviewed and industry sources cited in that article. Figures produced here are estimates for planning purposes, not a guarantee of actual recoverable value, which depends on your specific equipment, climate, and local heat or electricity market.
How to use the waste heat calculator
Enter your annual lettuce production and adjust the sliders to match your facility. Every assumption is pre-filled with a benchmark value, so you can get a first estimate without changing anything, then refine it with your own specific energy consumption, electricity price, and local heat value. The results update live and show both the sellable heat value and the avoided cooling cost, stacked from the same captured heat.
How the waste heat calculation works
The model starts from your annual production and your specific energy consumption, benchmarked at 10 to 18 kWh of electricity per kilogram of lettuce, with an average of 14 kWh/kg (Miserocchi and Franco, 2025). Because nearly all of that electricity ends up as heat, the tool applies a heat recovery rate of 50 to 70 percent, in line with liquid cooling cold-plate rates documented for electronics and data centers. Recoverable heat is then valued at 0.0084 to 0.0369 EUR/kWh, the levelized value range for low-temperature waste heat (PEM electrolyser waste heat study, 2023). The avoided cooling figure reflects the share of climate-control electricity you no longer need when heat is removed at the source rather than by air conditioning.
Assumptions and limitations
These figures are planning estimates, not a guarantee of recoverable value. Actual results depend on your equipment, local climate, and whether a nearby heat buyer or district heating connection exists. A share of cooling and dehumidification load remains regardless, driven by plant transpiration, which is why the avoidable portion is kept conservative.
Vertical farming waste heat: frequently asked questions
What is waste heat in a vertical farm?
It is the thermal energy released by LED grow lights and equipment. Since almost all lighting electricity converts to heat, a farm running heavily on artificial light produces a large, continuous low-temperature heat stream.
How much of LED electricity becomes heat?
In practical terms nearly all of it. Only a tiny fraction of the light energy is stored in plant biomass, so the rest is available as recoverable heat.
Can waste heat from a vertical farm be sold?
Yes, where a suitable buyer exists, such as a district heating network, greenhouse, or neighboring building. The realistic value depends on local heat prices and the distance to the offtaker.
How much can I save on cooling?
By capturing heat at the LED with liquid cooling instead of air conditioning the whole room, farms can avoid a meaningful share of climate-control electricity. The calculator shows this as avoided cost using your own electricity price.
How accurate is this calculator?
It uses published benchmark ranges and lets you adjust every assumption. Treat the output as a directional estimate for planning and investor conversations, then validate with site-specific engineering.