A generic tool for quantifying the energy requirements of glasshouse food production

Abstract

a b s t r a c tQuantifying the use of resources in food production and its environmental impact is key to identifying distinctive measures which can be used to develop pathways towards low-carbon food systems. In this paper, a first-principle modelling approach is developed, referred to as gThermaR (Glasshouse-Thermal Requirements). gThermaR is a generic tool that focuses on the energy requirements of protected heated production, by integrating holistic energy, carbon, and cost modelling, food production, data analytics and visualization. The gThermaR tool employs historic data from weather stations, growing schedules and requirements specific to grower and product needs (e.g. set-point temperatures, heating periods, etc.) in order to quantify the heating and cooling requirements of glasshouse food production. In the present paper, a case study is reported that employs a database compiled for the UK. Another relevant feature of the tool is that it can quantify the effects that spatial and annual weather trends can have on these heating and cooling requirements. The main contribution of this work, therefore, concerns the development a tool that can provide a simple integrated approach for performing a wide range of analyses relevant to the thermal requirements of heated glasshouses. The tool is validated through collaborations with industrial partners and showcased in a case study of a heated glasshouse in the UK, offering the capacity to benchmark and compare different glasshouse types and food growth processes. Results from the case study indicate that a significant reduction in the heating requirement and, therefore, carbon footprint, of the facility can be achieved by improving key design and operational parameters. Results indicate savings in the peak daily and annual heating requirements of 44e50% and 51e57% respectively, depending on the region where the glasshouse is located. This improvement is also reflected in the carbon emissions and operating costs for the different energy sources considered. Furthermore, the temporal variability/uncertainty of the annual energy requirements and of the peak daily energy requirements are found to be considerably lowered through improvements to the glasshouse attributes. Overall, gThermaR proves its value in quantifying and identifying key factors that have a significant impact on energy requirements of heated glasshouses. Such valuable outputs are invaluable for stakeholders in the food industry that have an interest in mapping the sustainability and mitigating the carbon footprint of their supply chain processes.

Planning water-energy-food nexus system management under multi-level and uncertainty

“…However, few studies were focused on food-energy linkages, and the relevant studies could be divided into two major areas: energy consumption during food production and biomass energy in agricultural sector (FAOUN, 2012; Souty et al, 2012;Xydis et al, 2017) [19,20,21]. In detail, Georgiou et al (2018) [22] developed a first-principle model for optimizing the energy configuration in food production processes. Bilandzija et al (2018) [23] explored the ascertain energy potential from the obtainable crops by seting up multiple scenarios.…”

“…Mercure et al (2019) [31] handled the impact of global environmental and economic changes by way of four different case studies. [11,22,13,14,32,33]. Even if the above methods are effective for handling the interactive contradictions between the two related resources while they are invalid to solve the inter-relations among multiple resources (Venghaus and Hake, 2018;Yu et al, 2019) [24,32].…”

“…MIFCP integrates the unique contribution of each individual technique which can better enhance the method's capability. Compared with the WEN, WFN and EFNsystems, WEFN system can reflect interrelations and contradictions among multiple resouces (Georgiou et al, 2018;Khan et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2018) [22,35,33]. In comparison with research works from Hussien et al…”

CEA Systems: the Means to Achieve Future Food Security and Environmental Sustainability?

“…As a result, the long-term sustainability of CEA systems (comparative to conventional farming) will depend on operational/upkeep carbon emissions, rather than initial infrastructure (same principal as electric cars). Due to high operational costs, there is a focus on optimizing energy efficiencies in these systems, predominantly through improved lighting technology and techniques (e.g., Avgoustaki and Xydis, 2020;Wong et al, 2020) and temperature control, which is also highly impacted by geographic location (Georgiou et al, 2018;Engler and Krarti, 2021).…”

Synergetic management of water-energy-food nexus system and GHG emissions under multiple uncertainties: An inexact fractional fuzzy chance constraint programming method

“…This leads to challenges to reflect those uncertainties in developing the management policies for WEFN system. Recently, a number of studies have been proposed deal with various uncertainties in the WEFN system through inexact optimization techniques (Perrone et al, 2011;Georgiou et al, 2018;Tsolas et al, 2018;Liu et al, 2019;Yu et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2018). Interval mathematical programming (IMP), stochastic programming (SP) and fuzzy programming (FP) are the three major approaches to reflect uncertainties in the WEFN systems, and each technique would have its unique feature and shortcomings in dealing with uncertainties.…”