IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v382y2025ics0306261924025479.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Best combinations of energy-efficiency measures in greenhouses considering energy consumption, yield, and costs: Comparison between two cold climate cities

Author

Listed:
  • Trépanier, Marie-Pier
  • Gosselin, Louis
  • Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard

Abstract

Greenhouse agriculture is enjoying a surge in popularity to increase food security and use resources efficiently. Less known is that greenhouses consume enormous amounts of energy for heating and lighting. Energy efficiency is paramount in greenhouse production, but choosing the best measures is challenging and depends on climate and energy tariffs. The novelty of this study is to investigate and compare multiple practices and their cumulative impacts in high-latitude greenhouses from energy, cost, and yield points of view. It focuses on simulating the energy consumption and yields in greenhouses under 31 energy-saving scenarios and in two different locations, Copenhagen (Denmark) and Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Various lighting and energy-saving techniques are explored, including high-pressure sodium (HPS) and light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, canopy interlighting, thermal screens, additional envelope insulation, and a heat harvesting system. Greenhouses in Copenhagen consume more energy due to artificial lighting to compensate for low solar radiation in winter. Energy costs are, on average, 77 % higher than in Montreal, partly due to high energy prices. The best scenario regarding energy operational cost per yield for Montreal is LED toplights with thermal screens and envelope insulation, and for Copenhagen it is LED toplights with thermal screens and a heat harvesting system. However, if growers wanted to implement only one measure, the results showed that LED toplights is the best measure to implement for both locations due to its high energy efficiency and minimal impact on yield. These results provide insight into the best energy efficiency measures tailored to specific locations.

Suggested Citation

  • Trépanier, Marie-Pier & Gosselin, Louis & Jørgensen, Bo Nørregaard, 2025. "Best combinations of energy-efficiency measures in greenhouses considering energy consumption, yield, and costs: Comparison between two cold climate cities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 382(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:382:y:2025:i:c:s0306261924025479
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.125163
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924025479
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2024.125163?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sedat Boyacı & Joanna Kocięcka & Barbara Jagosz & Atılgan Atılgan, 2025. "Energy Efficiency in Greenhouses and Comparison of Energy Sources Used for Heating," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(3), pages 1-20, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:382:y:2025:i:c:s0306261924025479. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.