Iranian researchers investigated the operation of an actual solar-powered greenhouse in Alborz province and located that solely 4% of the greenhouse roof wanted to be coated with PV modules to fulfill the demand for lighting. and pumping water.
A analysis group from the University of Tehran in Iran is conducting a feasibility examine for the usage of PV techniques in industrial hydroponic greenhouses throughout the nation.
Their work consisted of calculating the whole vitality enter of a strawberry greenhouse in a case examine that presently runs on pure gasoline and electrical energy, after which simulating the realm required by a PV system to fully substitute it. the electrical energy grid.
“This examine goals to evaluate the vitality and environmental elements, in addition to the practicality of utilizing photovoltaic cells to fulfill the vitality wants of a industrial hydroponic greenhouse within the province of Alborz,” stated the scientists. “Data was obtained from a 3,000 m2 strawberry hydroponic greenhouse via website visits, surveys, and measurements.”
Alborz is positioned in northern Iran and has a median annual temperature of 14.1 C and 252 millimeters per yr. Based on official information from 2000 to 2021, the common every day whole radiation is about 10.9 MJ m2, reaching a excessive of 29 MJ m2 in June and a decrease a part of 9 MJ m2 in December.
In their calculation of vitality enter, the researchers included parameters corresponding to human labor, gear, and fertilizers, together with pure gasoline and electrical energy use. Based on this, they discovered that all year long the whole vitality enter is 228,000 MJ per hectare.
“The outcomes present that the enter vitality consumption is highest for pure gasoline, which accounts for 68% of the whole enter vitality. The proportion of electrical vitality is about 20% of the consumed vitality,” they stated. “The whole electrical energy consumption of the studied greenhouse was 44,250 kWh (159,300 MJ).”
For their evaluation, the teachers sought to interchange solely the electrical energy from the grid, which is principally used for pumping water and lighting. In their software program simulation, they designed a south-oriented PV system put in on a greenhouse roof, with panels positioned at a slope of 35 levels. The reflectivity coefficient of the soil is assumed to be 0.3.
“The photovoltaic system is taken into account to be related to the grid, with the very best effectivity of the panel equal to 18% and the effectivity of the inverter and distribution cables is 96%,” the group additional defined.
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“The outcomes present that 7,736 MJ of photo voltaic vitality is acquired per yr per sq. meter of panel floor. Therefore, roughly 120 m2 of panel floor is required to generate this quantity of electrical energy. This panel floor accounts for nearly 4% of the greenhouse roof space and may present renewable photo voltaic electrical energy to the greenhouse with out considerably decreasing the extent of sunshine for the crops inside,” they discovered.
In calculating the affect of changing grid-connected electrical energy with native PV energy, the group additionally discovered that it lowered the unfavorable environmental affect of non-renewable vitality sources. They discovered that the injury to the human well being index decreased by 7% and the injury to the ecosystem index by 15%.
Their findings are introduced in “Study of the feasibility of utilizing photovoltaic cells for a industrial hydroponic greenhouse: Energy evaluation and life cycle evaluation,” revealed in e-Prime – Advances in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Energy.
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