14 Farmers are in full control of their enrollment,” Nuss emphasized. “They can choose to participate or not based on their operation.” For most, the financial upside is significant. “Yield growers enrolled in demand response on average see $20–30,000 annual revenue. In dynamic rates, growers can save 10 to 20 percent on their bill.” Engineering for Reliability at Scale Building a DERMS that can respond quickly enough for utilitygrade dispatches required solving two major engineering challenges: interoperability and performance at scale. “Farms have a mix of equipment types and vendors, so integrations must be hardware-agnostic while still reliable,” Nuss commented. The second challenge is ensuring consistent telemetry and control across thousands of devices. Yield has already enrolled thousands of assets and continues to deliver strong performance metrics. That reliability is essential for utilities evaluating agricultural loads. “We’ve delivered 100 percent average demand response performance and demonstrated 67 percent loadshift potential during peak hours,” stated Nuss, adding that those results help utilities see agriculture not as a risk, but as a dependable resource. A New Category of Clean, Flexible Capacity Utilities have not historically avoided agricultural loads, Nuss argues—they simply lacked the tools to properly unlock them. Irrigation pumping alone accounts for roughly one percent of all US electricity use, making it a massive, untapped resource. With Yield Edge, that resource becomes accessible. “What does grid-ready flexibility mean?” Nuss said. “It means a utility can count on farms to deliver measurable load reduction or load shifting quickly, repeatedly, and predictably—like a resource that can ‘show up’ when called.” During dispatch events, Yield Edge said that they coordinate participating assets so they can respond as a unified resource. Response times vary by program, from day-ahead notifications to 30-minute windows. In dynamic-rate programs, growers can schedule around high-priced hours to maximize savings. A Growing AgTech Ecosystem Yield Energy’s partner ecosystem is central to its scalability. By integrating with existing automation platforms, the company allows willing growers to participate in flexibility programs using equipment they already own. “We are partnering with the leading irrigation automation companies in agriculture, including Wiseconn, Netafim, Lumo, Verdi, RANCH Systems, Farmblox, and SWAN Systems,” he related. These integrations are built through standard API protocols, enabling partners to offer Yield programs as a native feature. For growers, that means a seamless experience. For partners, it adds a new revenue-generating or costsaving capability to their platforms. As farms electrify more equipment—EVs, cold storage, onsite generation—their importance to grid planning will only grow. “Agriculture becomes a new category of clean, flexible capacity,” Nuss summed up to this magazine. “Large, responsive loads that can support grid reliability and reduce the need for expensive upgrades—while strengthening grower economics.” Yield Energy sees this as the beginning of a long-term shift in how utilities and agriculture collaborate. With the right technology, farms can help stabilize the grid, reduce infrastructure costs, and generate new revenue streams—all without changing the way they farm. Learn more at www.yieldenergy.com. | pag “YIELD GROWERS ENROLLED IN DEMAND RESPONSE ON AVERAGE SEE $20–30,000 ANNUAL REVENUE. IN DYNAMIC RATES, GROWERS CAN SAVE 10 TO 20 PERCENT ON THEIR BILL.”
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