Articles
TOTAL ENERGY UNITS IN THE DUTCH GREENHOUSE INDUSTRY
The environmental policy plan for the Netherlands aims at an improvement of the energy-efficiency and a reduction of the total CO2-emission.
The fuel consumption can be reduced and consequently the CO2-emission, among other things, by the use of alternative energy sources.
An important alternative source is the simultaneous production of heat and power by total energy units (TE unit or cogenerator) on the individual holdings.
An inventory is executed of all the holdings witch uses a TE unit in the Dutch greenhouse-industry in the beginning of 1992. The inventory includes the type of holdings (area glass, crop, etc.) and ‘type of installation (ownership, capacity, the way of using the heat and electricity etc.). This research is financially supported by NOVEM and Nederlandse Gasunie (Dutch Gasunion).
In the Dutch greenhouse-industry the TE unit is used in several ways.
The most important possibilities are:
- The grower owns the TE unit.
The investments and runningcosts are for account of the grower.
The heat and electricity are used on the holding. - The public utility owns the TE unit.
The investments and runningcosts are for account of the public utility.
The grower buys the heat from the public utility, the electricity goes to the public grid. - The grower owns the TE unit and delivers a part of the produced electricity to the public grid.
The investments and runningcosts are for account of the grower.
Further results of the research will be available later on this year.