Sustainable Design in Agriculture—Energy Optimization of Solar Greenhouses with Renewable Energy Technologies

Abstract

In modern agriculture today, the cultivation of agricultural products cannot be imagined without greenhouses. This paper presents an energy optimization of a solar greenhouse with a photovoltaic system (PV) and a ground-source heat pump (GSHP). The PV system generates electricity, while the GSHP is used for heating and cooling. A greenhouse is designed with an Open Studio plug-in in the Google SketchUp environment, the EnergyPlus software (8.7.1 version) was used for energy simulation, and the GenOpt software (2.0.0 version) was used for optimization of the azimuth angle and PV cell efficiency. Results for different solar greenhouse orientations and different photovoltaic module efficiency are presented in the paper. The obtained optimal azimuth angle of the solar greenhouse was −8◦. With the installation of a PV array with higher module efficiency (20–24%), it is possible to achieve annual energy savings of 6.87–101.77%. Also, with the PV module efficiency of 23.94%, a concept of zero-net-energy solar greenhouses (ZNEG) is achieved at optimal azimuth and slope angle. Through the environmental analysis of different greenhouses, CO2 emissions of PV and GSHP are calculated and compared with electricity usage. Saved CO2 emission for a zero-net-energy greenhouse is 6626 kg CO2/year. An economic analysis of installed renewable energy systems was carried out: with the total investment of 19,326 € for ZNEG, the payback period is 8.63 years.