Conference Paper

Proceedings of eSim 2022: 12th Conference of IBPSA-Canada

Comparing the energy performance of different controlled environment agriculture spaces using TRNSYS

Marie-Hélène Talbot, Timothé Lalonde, Arnaud Beaulac, Didier Haillot, Danielle Monfet
ETS-Montreal, Canada

Abstract: Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) offers many advantages, including high crop productivity and the ability to produce all year round. The control of the indoor environment – temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration (CO2), lighting intensity (spectrum, and duration) – leads to higher yield than agriculture in fields. However, these advantages are often offset by high energy use. In this paper, the overall performance (i.e. the energy consumption, the peak electric demand, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) of two different CEA spaces, a greenhouse and a container, having the same production surface area were compared. The spaces and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems were modelled in TRNSYS, where a crop growth model was integrated. The overall performance of the container farm was shown to be better in terms of energy consumption, peak electricity demand and GHG emissions ratios compared to the greenhouse scenarios.
Keywords: Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), crop model, TRNSYS
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