New Research Aims to Cut Greenhouse Energy Costs in Half

Top 100 2016 Lighting Feature Image, university of georgiaOne of the steepest barriers to profitable controlled-environment agriculture is the energy costs associated with providing the plants enough light. New research being pioneered by the University of Georgia (UGA) could cut those costs by 50%.

With the support of a $5 million grant, a UGA-led team is working to develop strategies to increase the efficiency of lighting for controlled-environment agriculture.

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Professor Marc van Iersel of the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CAES) Department of Horticulture is leading the effort. The USDA National Institute for Food and Agriculture Specialty Crop Research Initiative funded the project, called “LAMP: Lighting Approaches to Maximize Profits,” earlier this summer.

“When you are talking about a greenhouse or plant factory, up to 60% of their total costs can go to energy, and about half of that goes to lighting,” says van Iersel, who has studied ways to reduce the lighting and irrigation costs in greenhouses for more than a decade. “So, if we can reduce those lighting costs, that would be a really big deal. The economic feasibility of plant factories is still questionable because it is so expensive to provide electric light to the plants.”

U.S. growers spend about $600 million per year on electricity for lighting in their greenhouses and plant factories. Using informatics, engineering, high-efficiency LED lights, and state-of-the-art greenhouse management practices, van Iersel hopes that they will be able to reduce the lighting energy costs by 50%.

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“This will increase the narrow profit margins in the industry while reducing carbon dioxide emissions associated with energy use,” van Iersel says. “Having team members with such different areas of expertise is critical to the success of the project.”

Industry support has been crucial in getting this project of the ground. The project builds on earlier work by van Iersel and his team of collaborators. The American Floral Endowment supported van Iersel’s early work on LED lighting. Findings from these earlier projects were instrumental in setting priorities for this new project. Letters of support from several industry groups, growers, and consultants were critical in convincing the USDA grant review panel that this project should be funded. And the horticulture industry-at-large has worked hard to establish and strengthen

USDA’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative. Projects funded as part of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative address practical horticultural problems and aim to provide solutions that can be widely implemented.

“We want to help producers answer a few simple questions,” van Iersel says. “One: Is lighting cost-effective in their specific situation? Two: If lighting is cost-effective, are high-pressure sodium or LED lamps the better option? And three: What is the most cost-effective way to use those lamps?”

CAES team members dedicated to the project include van Iersel, Horticulture Professor Paul Thomas, Agricultural Economist Ben Campbell, and Impact Evaluation Expert Kay Kelsey.

UGA faculty Mark Haidekker, WenZhan Song, Javad Mohammadpour Velni, and Tom Lawrence, all of the College of Engineering, will contribute to the project, as will UGA Terry College of Business energy informatics experts Rick Watson and Maric Boudreau.

Collaborators from other institutions include Jennifer Boldt at the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Toledo, OH; Neil Mattson and Kale Harbick at Cornell University; A.J. Both at Rutgers University; Bruce Bugbee at Utah State University; and Tessa Pocock at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

For more information about the project, go to Facebook.com/HortLAMP/.

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