PROFILE: POWERPLANTS
Powerplants: Powering sustainability in horticulture With over 28 years’ experience working with growers, wholesalers, researchers, and government authorities, Melbourne-based horticultural solutions leader Powerplants has a proven history of advancing Australia’s plant production and food sustainability. Leading the company is CEO Carl van Loon, who assists with the design of new projects, undertakes customer and key supplier visits, and keeps up to date with new growing systems and techniques with his co-Director Simon Gomme. Mr van Loon’s father was a Nurseryman, and as such he learned about plant propagation from an early age, going on to further his knowledge by studying Engineering at RMIT and Horticulture at Melbourne University. Mr van Loon spoke with us recently about the steady growth of the company since its inception in 1994, the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the horticultural industry, and the exciting developments in energy conservation and vertical farming that promise to be a big part of Powerplants’ future.
Making Growers’ lives easier “I started the company in 1994,” Mr van Loon says, “to provide growers with greenhouse climate control, systems, and service. The main goal was to improve productivity and quality of crops in their greenhouses.” Over the years, the company’s mission has shifted to making horticulture much more sustainable, not only by using less resources, but in making the lives of growers easier through the use of automation. “We’re also part of the Netherlands-based PB Tech Group, which is now also part of a much larger Atrium group of companies, which includes some very large glasshouse builders, designers, and turnkey providers.”
sometimes just taking them two levels up with one piece of machinery, or improving their greenhouse a bit, and it’s taken them to a level that they’re comfortable in.” Many of the company’s competitors from Europe tend to look at installing high-tech facilities as a matter of course, and not being interested in anything that isn’t large scale. “We’ve got pretty good at helping smaller and medium-sized growers get from whatever level they’re at to improving their productivity, improving their quality, reducing their demand on resources, pesticide use, fungicides, water, fertiliser, all of these things.” As the company expands into the Southeast Asian market, it is taking a similar approach, looking at smaller growers, with the same needs as the Australian growers Powerplants has helped for years. This tried and tested model promises to replicate that success. The company is formed of four main divisions, which have been introduced steadily over the years. These divisions are Climate Systems, Controls and Water Systems, Automation and Labour Saving Systems, and Design and Project Management. “Right at the start it was just Climate Systems, so we were putting in Retractable Shading & Fog Cooling systems, Circulation Fans and so on just to optimize the growing environment for plants. So that was the first division, and gradually over the years we added three more divisions.”
Powerplants manufactures its own line of products locally in Melbourne, including circulation fans, fogging systems, auto dosing and recycling systems for fertiliser and water, and benching systems. “We are always developing long-term relationships with our customers, and expand with them as the business grows. Our customers include growers who sell directly to supermarkets and retailers, as well as corporates and government. We design and provide R&D facilities for government and larger seed companies, such as Bayer and others.” It’s an exciting time for Powerplants, with the company expanding its operations from being exclusively Australian to working in New Zealand and Southeast Asia, with some interesting vertical farming projects on the horizon in Singapore and elsewhere. “What we’ve done in Australia pretty well is learn how to help growers improve, not just straight to the top level, but
Over the years, the company’s mission has shifted to making horticulture much more sustainable, not only by using less resources, but in making the lives of growers easier through the use of automation. u
GROUNDSWELL AUGUST 2022
15