SPRHOUT proof of concept installed in the South of France
Title
SPRHOUT Solar PoweRed Horticultural Off-grid UniT
Duration
1 March 2020 / 28 February 2021
VIDA Challenges
Sustainable agriculture and efficient greenhouse management
Summary
The growing world population is expected to mark an increase of 2.5bn people by 2050, pushing the demand for food to rise by at least 60%. Agriculture must find sustainable methods to double its production.
Greenhouse-based horticulture can highly contribute to this goal, thanks to its unparalleled benefits in terms of reduced use of water and higher quality and quantity of product with respect to traditional horticulture. Nonetheless, greenhouse farms need a huge amount of energy to operate (electricity and gas).
Despite the increasing demand for intensive food production technologies, the full deployment of the greenhouse model is currently hindered in the sunbelt regions (Asia, Africa and Middle East), where 90% of the world population growth will be concentrated, by poor infrastructures (unreliable electricity and gas networks).
In order to bridge this gap, at SOLHO we have developed the SPRHOUT, the most effective renewable energy system to power greenhouse farms. By using solar power and thanks to a proprietary thermal energy storage the SPRHOUT enables the energy self-sufficiency of greenhouse farms generating heating, cooling and electricity. In March 2019, the SPRHOUT proof of concept (PoC) was commissioned in France next to a 3-ha greenhouse. The facility has been operating for one year demonstrating its capabilities in covering the energy load of the greenhouse in different weather condition. This VIDA project focuses on the Energy, Water and KET sectors. In particular, we leverage the SPRHOUT facility to achieve completely unmanned operation.
SOLHO will partner with Filippini industrial electrotechnics, an Italian company with more than 25 years of experience in industrial automation, to implement sensors based IoT solutions interacting with the SPRHOUT control algorithms and the greenhouse farm monitoring system.
How the SPRHOUT Works
Partners
Social Media/Hashtags
#SolarHorticulture, #ZeroEmissionGreenhouseFarms, #SustainableFoodProvision, #SolarThermal, #ThermalEnergyStorage