03 Apr AHT Netherlands Saving Energy and the Environment
in the Biggest Strawberry Greenhouse in Holland!
AHT Netherlands Saving Energy and the Environment in the Biggest Strawberry Greenhouse in Holland!
The Dutch government wants to make its horticultural area more sustainable, therefore this sector must participate in the energy transition. In this regard, GFSC Consultants (the partner of AHT Netherlands) successfully applied for a big subsidy to reduce the amount of energy that is used in the greenhouse sector.
This can be achieved by using our unique AHT Amorphous Metal Ribbon Radiant Heating Technology. The project which started in early August 2022 will last until August 2023, is in a greenhouse of the biggest strawberry grower in the Netherlands with an area of 20 hectares producing about 3000 tons of strawberries every year!
Strawberries are grown vertically in metal gutters hanging from the ridge of the greenhouse, see below. In total there is 200000 m of strawberries!
The subsidy is for a test that involves 5 gutters of 140 m each, so 700 m in total. Here we replace the traditional heating system (hot water pipes) partly by AHT heating mats (surface heating) and partly by AHT outdoor ribbons (line heating). Both are situated directly under plastic flower boxes, see the images below. 18 different test sections are defined, where we change parameters such as temperature, power, insulation and energy use. To control all this, two big control units that I’ve built are placed in the centre of the test sections.
The whole idea of the project is, that we can prove that the energy consumption can be drastically reduced by directly heating the strawberries (instead of heating al the air in the greenhouse), that they grow faster and that there will be more strawberries per m1. Of course this will all be well monitored over the next months, whereby in summer 2023 GFSC will produce a report with all results.