Energy Use Efficiency and Carbon Footprint of Greenhouse Hydroponic Cultivation Using Public Grid and PVs as Energy Providers

Georgios Liantas, Ioanna Chatzigeorgiou, Maria Ravani, Athanasios Koukounaras and Georgios K. Ntinas ()
Additional contact information
Georgios Liantas: Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DIMITRA, Thermi, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Ioanna Chatzigeorgiou: Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DIMITRA, Thermi, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Maria Ravani: Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DIMITRA, Thermi, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece
Athanasios Koukounaras: Department of Horticulture, School of Agriculture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Georgios K. Ntinas: Institute of Plant Breeding and Genetic Resources, ELGO-DIMITRA, Thermi, 57001 Thessaloniki, Greece

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: As the greenhouse cultivation industry considers new ways to reduce energy demand and increase sustainable production, the global energy crisis constitutes a major issue. In this paper, two different energy sources for heating and cooling the root zone area of baby leafy vegetables grown in hydroponic tanks by resistors and chillers, respectively, were compared in order to fully cover power demand. The energy needs in the first case were met by the public electricity grid, while in the second case, the energy needs were covered by a photovoltaic system. The greenhouse was equipped with photovoltaic panels, an inverter, a charge controller and a storage system. The target-value of the root zone temperature was 22 °C. Data on solar radiation, root zone temperature, air temperature and humidity from the indoor and outdoor space of the greenhouse were recorded, and the energy production and carbon footprint for different seasons of the year were evaluated along with the crop yield. The results showed that the energy provided by solar panels was able to cover 58.0%, 83.3% and 9.6% of the energy for heating or cooling the root zone area during the spring, summer and winter periods, respectively. Regarding the carbon footprint of the energy used between the two systems, the system with the PV had a substantially lower value, which was calculated at 1.6 kg CO 2 -eq kg −1 , compared to 49.9 kg CO 2 -eq kg −1 for the system with PPG for the whole year.

Keywords: sustainable greenhouse; solar photovoltaic energy; environmental impact; floating system; lettuce (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (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/2071-1050/15/2/1024/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1024/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1024-:d:1026558

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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