cooling
Nijssen presents energy saving, mobile climate chamber
Nijssen will present the mobile climate chamber MyGrowthRoom at the GreenTech. With MyGrowthRoom cultivators and researchers will be able to efficiently optimise growth recipes and test new LED solutions.
Cultivation tests play a crucial role for cultivation under LED-lighting. Optimum light schedules and climate recipes improve the product quality and guarantee a good balance between growth cycle and energy bill. Research also shows that, for example, flavour, colour and texture can be influenced with LED-lighting. With MyGrowthRoom multiple cultivation trials can be carried out simultaneously under uniform conditions. The settings of a cultivation trial are easily saved as a recipe. MyGrowthRoom has a growing area of 6 m3, with a flexible layout and can be used with any cultivation system.
Integrated cooling and drying
Two air coolers take care of the integrated cooling, heating and drying of the cultivation room. This reduces the required cooling capacity. A separate air dryer is no longer needed. The integrated regulation allows for better manageable climate conditions in a broad temperature and RH range. With that, MyGrowthRoom is universally employable for tests with a large number of crops in every growth stage. Further energy saving is realized by storing the radiant heat from the LED lighting into a heat storage tank during the day. During the nighttime period this heat is reused to keep the room at the right temperature without extra electric heating.Various refrigeration innovations save up to 30 per cent of the energy use for cooling.
High-tech research facility
Nijssen is renowned for realising advanced climate chambers for a large number of universities and seed improvement companies. “All of the know-how from these high-tech research projects is combined in MyGrowthRoom," explains Edwin Snabel, business unit manager climate technology for Nijssen. "With MyGrowthRoom we offer professional cultivators the opportunity to do their own product research under the best possible circumstances.”
Nijssen can be visited in hall 8 at stand 133 during the GreenTech trade fair.
Related
Wageningen University tests water conservation technology in the Middle East
The greenhouse horticulture division of Wageningen University Research Centre is involved in setting up research centres in the field of water conservation in the Middle East. Their goal is to test water conservation technology under local circumstances. Technology that enables plants to be grown without any soil, possibly based on the recirculation of drain water, is a key topic.
Most of the water used in greenhouse horticulture under Middle Eastern conditions is not used to grow plants, but to cool greenhouses using the pad & fan principle of evaporative cooling. This cooling method is quite effective on account of the low humidity outside, but it uses a lot of water. The amount of water needed could be compensated for by leaving less heat in greenhouses. However, as this is primarily heat generated by the sun, this could only be limited slightly without any concessions to production. A possible solution would be to apply specially developed covering materials with spectral properties to reflect part of the solar radiation not used for the photosynthesis process. Additionally, greenhouses could also be cooled mechanically through air conditioning. Obviously, this would require more energy, but it would also result in higher production of a better quality.
Technical and economic feasibility
The research conducted at the centres will focus primarily on the technical and economic feasibility of these innovations in the Middle East. The application of these innovations in practice will also be investigated, in which the necessary expertise will closely examined. ‘The application of high-quality technology without the accompanying expertise would be like selling a Ferrari to someone who has never driven a car,’ explains Jouke Campen, researcher for Greenhouse Climate and Energy at Wageningen UR.
Source/photo: Wageningen University Research Centre.