GREENERGY is a European Collective Research project with a duration of 3 years and funded by the European Commission, which aims to investigate the greenhouse energy requirements for different climatic areas across Europe. During the project tools for auditing energy efficiency in greenhouses, a set of technical improvement measures and a guideline for the optimisation of energy consumption in European greenhouses will be developed and tested in several case studies taking into account current and upcoming European environmental legislation. The main beneficiaries will be greenhouse farmers’ associations and their associates from different European countries.

Duration: 2005-2008

Budget: 2.437.914 €

Partners:

•  Panhellenic Confederation of Unions of Agricultural Co-operatives ( Greece ) - Coordinator

•  Danish Association of Horticulture Producer ( Denmark )

•  Horticulture Development Council ( United Kingdom )

•  Finish Glasshouse Grower Association ( Finland )

•  Hungarian Fruit and Vegetable Interprofessional Organization ( Hungary )

•  Estonian Horticulture Association ( Estonia )

•  General Confederation of Italian Agriculture ( Italy )

•  Association of Producers and Exporters of Horticultural Products of Almería ( Spain )

•  Tomato Grower Association ( United Kingdom )

•  Honkasen Puutarhe Oy ( Finland )

•  Gärtnerei Hans Paetz (Germany)

•  Agrocomponentes ( Spain )

•  Farm Energy Centre ( United Kingdom )

•  Gärtnerei Hans -Jürgen Sadowski (Germany)

•  Varpio Puutarha Oy ( Finland )

•  Bioazul Sl ( Spain )

•  A. Pearson & Sons Ltd ( United Kingdom )

•  Agronin ( Romania )

•  Hevi-Kolmio Oy ( Finland )

•  Technologie Transfer Zentrum Bremerhaven (Germany)

•  The Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University ( Denmark )

•  Valtion Teknillinen Tutkimuskeskus ( Finland )

•  Wageningen University ( Netherlands )

•  Technical Uni. Timisoara ( Romania )

•  Estonian Agriculture University ( Estonia )

•  University of Almería ( Spain )

•  Hertfordshire Universit y (United Kingdom)

Main strategic objectives of the GREENERGY project:

• to reduce the energy consumption in existing greenhouse with small changes in configuration and operating procedures
• to improve the competitiveness of European farmers enabling them to cope with the growing fuel prices and external competition
• to decrease the emissions of greenhouse effect gases to the environment, and to assist the farmers to comply with current and upcoming environmental regulations.
• to initiate the adoption of modern management strategies such as standardisation and benchmarking in the field of greenhouse agriculture.
• to reinforce the public image of those European greenhouse growers who produce by means of energy efficient systems against external competitors

• Review of the situation of European greenhouses in terms of energy consumption in the different climatic areas and definition of technical improvements in the form of low and medium investment measures.
• Creation of a user-friendly optimisation guideline to assist greenhouse growers in the improvement of their greenhouse energy systems trough the application of best practice procedures including the technical improvements described above.
• Creation of an investment decision tool to help the growers determine the profitability of the medium cost technical improvements
• Development of an energy auditing software tool to assess the efficiency of energy use in greenhouses installations by benchmarking the actual energy consumption of the greenhouse against the consumption of an optimised reference greenhouse simulated by the program with real meteorological data.
• To propose the European Quality Standards for efficient use of energy in greenhouses based in the auditing tool described above.
• Development of training material and transfer of know-how to the IAG partners to enable them to transfer it to their SME associates
• Dissemination of the project outcomes among the relevant stakeholders (other associations , greenhouse manufacturers, decision makers, etc.) through the Internet, publications in relevant sectorial journals, presentations in conferences and fairs, etc.

• to improve the energy systems of existing greenhouses in order to achieve a more efficient use of the energy that complies with the environmental legislation in the different European producing areas:
  -In the North and West of Europe, energy is mostly required for heating and supplementary lighting provision.
  -In the South, energy is mainly used for cooling and ventilation, although the lack of efficiency of the methods currently employed, limits their application in the summertime.
  -In the candidate countries drastic improvements in greenhouses’ energy consumption and delivery (heating, cooling and electricity) are required.
• to propose and initiate the European Quality Standards for efficient use of energy in greenhouses.
• to increase the general knowledge of the SMEs to increase the ability to compete in the European and global market.
• to achieve a sustainable and environmentally friendly greenhouse horticulture production.

Background:
Protected horticulture is an intensive form of agriculture production, both in labour and capital. Particularly greenhouse horticulture offers good possibilities for control of production and quality, which can lead to very high production levels of products such as vegetables, cut flowers and ornamental pot plant with excellent quality. The European market for both vegetables and ornamentals is large and competitive, with high-quality products demanded by a customer base with strong buying power and discerning taste. At present, more than 30 % of the vegetables and fruits consumed in Europe are produced in greenhouses. In addition, as eastern Europe markets open up, the EU is set to become the biggest consumer of greenhouse products in the world. Europe is also one of the most important suppliers of greenhouse products.
Thus of the 220,000 hectares covered by greenhouses worldwide in 1993, 80,000 ha corresponded to greenhouses of EU countries, almost 36%. By the end of 2001 this value had already increased up to 100,252 ha. Regarding the structure of the sector, more than 90% of European greenhouse growers are “Small and Medium-size Enterprises” (SMEs). The sector employs directly more than 500,000 persons in Europe. The key factor affecting European greenhouse growers is the cost of energy: European growers have to compete with external suppliers that have very low labour and production costs and are able to supply their products all year round. In Europe however, labour costs and transport costs are expected to grow within the next few years enabling greenhouse products from outside the EU to have even more competitive prices with respect to European produce. In order to be able to remain competitive European greenhouse growers must reduce the costs of their products, which can mainly be done by reducing the costs related to energy consumption. The problem of energy costs affects all the European production areas to different extent:

-North-western Europe. Around 78% of the European horticulture produce comes from the north-western region here energy is mainly used for heating proposes, although it is also used to provide supplementary lighting (to enhance plant growth), to enrich with CO2 and to control humidity. Energy costs account for more than 50% of the total production costs.

-New EU Member. These countries bring further horticulture capacity to the EU. The main obstacle for eastern European greenhouse growers is the use of energy systems with very low thermal and electrical efficiency, which are not environmentally friendly and produce a large amount of emissions.

-Southern Europe . The sector is affected negatively by climatic and technical factors. Firstly, summer temperatures are too high for production, and secondly the lack of heating in winter season decreases productivity and the quality of the products when the temperature falls bellow 12°C.

Parallel to the pressure of external competitors, the European SME growers have to face an increasing public demand for environment-friendly production. The European Union has already addressed this social concern by approving the Kyoto Protocol through Council Decision 2002/358/EC. The Union is committed to achieving an 8 % reduction in emissions of greenhouse gases by 2008 to 2012 compared to 1990 levels. To accomplish this target, the Community is issuing a series of environmental regulations specially regarding emissions of air pollutants. These increasingly stricter directives will be of direct application to greenhouse heating systems becoming a threat to the survival of those European growers whose systems are unable to comply with the coming emission standards. The prospect for growers of new member countries is even tougher since their current energy systems cannot comply with current EU air pollution legislation (Directive 96/62/EC). Regarding the situation described above, it is clear that the development of solutions to cut down energy consumption is essential for greenhouse growers all over Europe. Many possibilities and solutions to reduce energy use in greenhouse horticulture are known, although many of them are not yet used by the growers. In the last few years some European countries like the Netherlands and Denmark have focused several research activities to increase the energy efficiency in the glasshouse industry and have achieved some partial success. However the results of such research activities have not been transferred into the practical procedures for application by the greenhouse SMEs at national or European level. This is due, partly to high investment costs but also due to a lack of knowledge and the inability to access to practical information experienced by the growers.

Further information available on the project website www.greenergy-project.com.