Improvement of Piglet Rearing’s Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Using Air-to-Air Heat Exchangers—A Two-Year Case Study

Hauke F. Deeken (), Alexandra Lengling, Manuel S. Krommweh and Wolfgang Büscher
Additional contact information
Hauke F. Deeken: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, University of Bonn, Nußallee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Alexandra Lengling: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, University of Bonn, Nußallee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Manuel S. Krommweh: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, University of Bonn, Nußallee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany
Wolfgang Büscher: Institute of Agricultural Engineering, University of Bonn, Nußallee 5, 53115 Bonn, Germany

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-30

Abstract: Pig farming in mechanically ventilated barns requires much electricity for ventilation or exhaust air purification. Furthermore, thermal energy is needed to fulfill the animals’ temperature requirements, especially in piglet rearing. Electrical and thermal energy input leads to CO 2 emissions and operating costs. Up to 90% of heat losses are due to the exhausted air. Heat exchangers can recover thermal energy from the warm exhaust air and transfer it to the cold fresh air. This study aimed to investigate energy consumption, efficiency, CO 2 emissions, and energy costs when using heat exchangers in a German piglet rearing barn under practical conditions in combination with exhaust air purification. The following parameters were obtained for a two-year period: air temperatures, air flow rates, and electricity and liquefied natural gas consumption; the latter were used to calculate CO 2 emissions and energy costs. In total, 576,042 kWh el,th and 616,893 kWh el,th (years 1 and 2) of energy were provided, including 290,414 kWh th and 317,913 kWh th of thermal energy recovered. Using heat exchangers reduced CO 2 emissions by up to 37.5% and energy costs by up to 19.7% per year. The study shows that piglet rearing can increase its ecological and environmental sustainability by using heat recovery.

Keywords: air purification; bio scrubber; climate change; CO 2 emissions; emissions; heat recovery; HVAC; livestock husbandry; pig farming; resource-saving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/4/1799/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/4/1799/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:4:p:1799-:d:1065415

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().