2005-2008: Energy
optimisation in European greenhouses - GREENERGY
It
is estimated that greenhouses cover an area of about 41000 ha in the
European Union, setting Europe as the biggest supplier of greenhouse
products in the world. At the same time, as Eastern European markets
open up, the EU is also becoming the biggest consumer of greenhouse
products in the world. The competitiveness of European growers is
however threatened by increasing fuel costs and competition from
growers outside of Europe with lower production costs. The main
contributor to production costs for European growers is from energy
consumption, thus the optimisation of the energy intensive systems and
operating procedures in existing greenhouse production will reduce
these costs. In addition, a reduction in energy consumption will also
help growers to contend with the increasingly restrictive environmental
regulations that affect the sector. In this project, the greenhouse
energy requirements for four different geographical areas within Europe
were investigated. A tool for auditing energy efficiency in
greenhouses, a set of technical improvement measures and a guideline
for the optimisation of energy consumption in European greenhouses was
developed and tested by growers and advisors across Europe. The
objectives of the project were to: reduce the energy consumption in
existing greenhouses with small changes in configuration and operating
procedures; improve the competitiveness of European farmers and enable
them to contend with increasing fuel prices and with competition from
producers outside the EU; decrease atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions
and to assist growers with compliance to current and upcoming
environmental regulations; and initiate the adoption of modern
management strategies such as standardisation and benchmarking in the
field of greenhouse agriculture.
AERU
was responsible for the development of the Energy Auditing Tool,
developed in three parts. The structural specifications of the
greenhouse and its management (‘Reference Greenhouse Specifications’)
define the variables used within the ‘Core Calculation module’. The
‘Core Calculation module’ uses energy balance and crop models to allow
derivation of the optimal greenhouse parameters for a given reference
(baseline) greenhouse. Thirdly, the ‘Graphical User Interface module’
displays the results to the user in and easily accessible format. It
allows the user to save the profile of each greenhouse they assess for
comparison and running ‘what if?’ scenarios.
Publications
- Körner, O., Warner, D.,
Tzilivakis, J.,
Eveleens, B. and Heuvelink, E. (2008). Decision Support for Optimising
Energy Consumption in European Greenhouses. Acta Hort. (ISHS),
801: 803-810.
- Warner, D.J., Tzilivakis,
J., Korner, O., Eveleens, B., Heuvelink, E. & Lewis, K.A. (2008). GREENERGY
- Energy optimisation in European greenhouses: D16: Core SME greenhouse
growers final energy consumption data. European Commission,
Brussels.
- Warner, D.J., Tzilivakis,
J., Korner, O., Eveleens, B., Heuvelink, E. & Lewis, K.A. (2008). GREENERGY
- Energy optimisation in European greenhouses: D6/D7/D8: Reference
Greenhouse, Core Calculation Module and Graphical User Interface for
the Energy Auditing Tool (EAT). Final Version. European Commission,
Brussels.
- Warner, D.J., Tzilivakis,
J., Korner, O., Eveleens, B., Heuvelink, E. & Lewis, K.A. (2008). GREENERGY
- Energy optimisation in European greenhouses: D9: Delivery of the
Energy Auditing Tool (EAT). European Commission, Brussels.
Contact
Dr Doug Warner
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