Hi Tampahydro,

Check out http://www.peteshydrohot.com/

Pete is from Florida. He grows soilless habanero and scotch bonnet peppers. I chatted with him a little bit while writing a review for his hot sauce (all very good) and he is a really friendly and cool guy. Maybe you could try shooting an email his way.

You can definitely do hydroponics outside, but doing so opens the system up to many of the same problems you get growing in fields. So most places that want to get the benefits of hydroponics take the extra steps to cover everything up with a greenhouse. (Which is what I assume you're talking about with commercial indoor operations.)

A lot of what you find online geared to indoor hydroponics at a "hobby" scale is probably written with a very specific crop in mind, which is why so much of it is geared towards indoor growing - they can't exactly plant it in the back yard.

But if it's a legal crop there isn't much reason not to take advantage of the sun's power if you can.

I grow indoors simply because I don't have a greenhouse and don't want my hydroponic equipment subject to the elements. That and I think it's fun to grow with lights.

So in short I don't think that hydroponics farms shy away from truly outdoor crops due to economic feasibility quite as much as it's just simpler and easier to control everything if you put a glass roof over it.

A lot of them actually use inflatable greenhouses too. A big plastic film building held up by a few fans to puff it up. When you think about how cheap it is to use those things, it's hard to imagine why you wouldn't.

I grow the majority of my hydro crops outside. (I live in North Carolina) Granted I'm still a hobbyist, but I haven't seen a good reason not to. you do get more bugs (versus indoor) but still waaaayyyy less than sticking them in the ground.
I myself have some commercial ideas in mind. Just haven't completed my research to institute larger scale systems.

I don't think a commercial farm could really indoors - there just wouldn't be enough light and supplementing that with electrical lighting would just massively drive up costs.

I don't really consider greenhouses to be "indoor" growing since they're generally pretty open to the environment compared to most buildings. The exhaust fans and intake windows combined with the typical heat exhaust window up top let in a lot more pests than a hous.

Of course you do keep out the vast majority of them (particularly the four-legged ones) but I still consider it outdoors. If it doesn't have insulation and full-fledged climate control (HVAC) I don't consider it "indoors".