A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, JULY 19, 2017
BUSINESS
Expo showcases farm tech Wind farm
changing hands
Future Farm Expo
scheduled for Aug.
15-17
Wheatridge
rights sold to
Florida company
By GEORGE PLAVEN
STAFF WRITER
Imagine putting on a
pair of virtual reality gog-
gles and being able to con-
trol a robot that mimics
human movements to prune
clusters of premium wine
grapes.
Sounds futuristic, but
the Remote Operated Vine-
yard Robot, or ROVR, may
become an integral tool for
U.S. winegrowers sooner
rather than later.
Engineers at Digital
Harvest, a Virginia-based
company specializing in
precision agriculture, have
spent the last 18 months
working to build the ROVR
system, which will be on
full display during the 2017
Future Farm Expo coming
Aug. 15-17 at the Pendle-
ton Convention Center.
The Future Farm Expo
is a three-day summit and
trade show that invites local
agriculture professionals —
including growers, consul-
tants and food processors
— to meet with high-tech
developers and learn how
they can use drones and
droids to make their oper-
ations run more efficiently.
This year’s expo will
feature drones capable of
flying beyond the pilot’s
line of sight, mobile farm-
ing apps, advances in ir-
rigation technology and,
yes, a live demonstration
of ROVR, which was built
from scratch at Digital Har-
vest’s research outpost at
the Pendleton Unmanned
Aerial Systems Range.
The ROVR has already
been tested in vineyards
around Echo, seeking to
overcome a chronic short-
age of manual labor in the
wine industry. Using the
virtual reality platform,
skilled workers can essen-
tially take command of the
By GEORGE PLAVEN
STAFF WRITER
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO BY ROBERT DELAHANTY
The Remote Operated Vineyard Robot, or ROVR, will be on display during the 2017 Future
Farm Expo in Pendleton.
robot from anywhere in the
world — a Chinese office
building, for example —
potentially opening a global
workforce.
Young Kim, CEO of
Digital Harvest, said the
company tried a number
of different tools to oper-
ate the ROVR, such as joy
sticks and game controllers.
However, none were able to
duplicate the same level of
speed and accuracy from
workers in the field.
“By using virtual reality
as an operator interface, we
not only improved manual
dexterity but also opened
up the possibility of hu-
man workers being able to
teleport to work from any-
where,” Kim said in a state-
ment.
The ROVR will be fit-
ted with remote sensors
to provide real-time crop
data, such as the size of
grape clusters and estimat-
ed yield, and moves via
driverless golf cart, which
was donated to the project
by Yamaha Unmanned Sys-
tems.
Like Digital Harvest,
Yamaha has set up shop at
the Pendleton UAS Range,
where they help to form the
backbone of the Oregon
UAS Future Farm program.
Jeff Lorton, Future Farm
manager, said adopting au-
tomated technology is key
for agriculture moving for-
ward. Future Farm exists
to help bridge the connec-
tion between Silicon Val-
ley-types working to make
those machines a reality,
and farmers who can best
explain the issues they face.
“The idea is to bring the
people who can develop
these solutions here, and
give them the benefit of
agricultural wisdom in the
Columbia Basin,” Lorton
said.
For three days, the Fu-
ture Farm Expo helps to
facilitate a meeting of those
minds.
“The whole goal is to
bring these two groups of
people together and create
an environment where they
can learn from each other
and form personal relation-
ships,” Lorton said.
Lorton, who also serves
as creative director for
the Duke Joseph advertis-
ing agency in downtown
Pendleton, said this year’s
Future Farm Expo has as-
sembled perhaps the great-
est ever panel of farm auto-
mation experts. The event’s
keynote speaker is George
Kellerman, a founding
MORE WINNERS. MORE OFTEN.
member of Yamaha Mo-
tor Ventures & Laboratory,
whose presentation is titled,
“How robotics and automa-
tion will save farming in
the 21st century.”
In order for agricul-
ture to thrive, Lorton said
farmers need to be for-
ward-thinking.
“Nationally, we are
bleeding off (individual)
farm owners every year,”
he said. “We have to turn to
technology.”
The final day of the Fu-
ture Farm Expo will also
feature a “pancake summit,”
where participants can learn
more about joining Future
Farm and accelerating the
development of farm tech-
nologies. Lorton said he
hopes to see their industries
run with the program.
Registration for the Fu-
ture Farm Expo can be done
online at www.futurefarm-
expo.tech. The cost is $125
for all three days, though
participants can save 25
percent by using the pro-
motional code “earlybird.”
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
On the brink of con-
struction, a 292-turbine
wind farm slated for Uma-
tilla and Morrow counties
is changing hands.
NextEra Energy, based
in Juno Beach, Florida,
has purchased the de-
velopment rights for the
Wheatridge Wind Ener-
gy Facility and is now
working to transfer the
project’s site certificate
through the Oregon De-
partment of Energy.
Wheatridge was pi-
oneered by Ione farmer
Jerry Rietmann before
the facility sold to Nex-
tEra in April, according
to documents. One month
later, the Energy Facili-
ty Siting Council issued
its site certificate for the
wind farm, giving de-
velopers the go-ahead to
start building.
A request to transfer
the certificate from Swag-
gart Wind Power LLC to
NextEra Energy was filed
June 14. But first, an in-
formational hearing will
be held before the council
Thursday, July 27, at the
Best Western Plus Inn in
Hood River.
Rietmann did not re-
turn calls for comment.
A spokesman for NextEra
Energy released a state-
ment saying the project
“will create tremendous
economic opportunities
for the region as well
as bring more low-cost,
emission-free energy to
Oregon.”
Once
completed,
Wheatridge will gener-
ate up to 500 megawatts
of energy. The turbines
are designed to be built
over two main areas —
Wheatridge West, located
entirely within Morrow
County about seven miles
northwest of Heppner,
and Wheatridge East,
about 16 miles northeast
of Heppner and crossing
into Umatilla County.
The two areas will be 25
miles apart, connected
via 230-kilovolt overhead
power lines.
Transmission onto the
electricity grid was not
addressed in the proj-
ect’s application, as de-
velopers had intended
for a third party to own
and construct those lines
separately. The hope was
that by establishing a
single designated trans-
mission corridor, mul-
tiple projects including
Wheatridge could link
up on a single set of lines
without having a spider-
web of lines crisscross
the landscape. There was
particular concern multi-
ple transmission systems
could interrupt farming
and take high-value land
out of production.
NextEra says it is cur-
rently working on solu-
tions to connect onto the
power grid, and evaluat-
ing its options for selling
the power generated by
Wheatridge.
As of 2016, NextEra
and its subsidiaries had a
consolidated revenue of
$16.2 billion and 45,900
megawatts of generating
capacity. NextEra Energy
Resources bills itself as
the world’s largest gener-
ator of renewable energy
from the wind and sun.
———
Contact
George
Plaven at gplaven@eas-
toregonian.com or 541-
966-0825.
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