Energy prices have never been so volatile as since the Russian invasion of Ukraine when prices per cube rocketed to six times their 2020 low.
“It was a shock to growers,” says Svensson Product Manager, Paul Arkesteijn, who has energy efficiency and Svensson’s Energy Monitor as a focus area. “Many growers in colder regions are intensive energy users.”
Arkesteijn says it was a threat to the sustainability of their businesses. Profits, the first “P” in the so-called triple bottom line, alongside People and Planet, took a hit.
Yet, growers have adapted. Many have upgraded to a new level of energy efficiency. And when growers keep their focus on those famous Ps of sustainable business, there’s a win-win-win possible, says Arkesteijn. When profits and planet are addressed, the result is a better way to achieve the social sustainability goal of providing food in an environmentally sensitive way.
From his recent customer experiences with growers who are seeking out new levels of sustainability, we’ve put together a five-step path to a climate-friendly greenhouse climate.
Svensson's Paul Arkesteijn says it's generally not difficult to persuade growers to work on energy saving.
1. Commit to energy saving and sustainable growing
Step one is to commit to energy-saving and sustainable business practice.
Growers generally don’t need to be persuaded about the argument for energy efficiency,” he says. “I was with a grower this winter who is applying all the technology he can to his 4.5 hectare (Ha) greenhouse and he saved €41,000 in the month of January thanks to his double Luxous screens.”
"Many smart growers are part of this movement to level up their efficiency and saving energy."
That helps with the P for profit of course, but the same intervention resulted in the prevention of 172,900 kg of CO2.
“It’s not a no-brainer, because there is an investment to make,” says Arkesteijn, “but I think many smart growers are part of this movement to level up their efficiency and saving energy.”
2. Capture your data and potential savings
Arkesteijn says the same grower was rigorously capturing data.
“Growers now have the ability to monitor their energy use and see in real time where they are letting savings go up in smoke,” says Arkesteijn.
“From reviewing the experience of our customers over the last winter, we’ve seen them really benefiting from three things that our Energy Monitor module provides,” he says. “First, the actual energy savings they’ve achieved. Second, any missed savings. Thirdly, Energy Monitor automatically generates an advisory note to the grower, showing how they can adapt their screening strategy for better emissions reductions and cost reduction.”
3. Adapt your strategy
Once the data is coming in, says Arkesteijn, growers are in a perfect position to be agile, which is to say to take data-driven action fast.
“Like with one of our Dutch growers recently,” he says, “the data was suggesting they were wasting €5000 during the beginning of the winter. And over the following months what we saw was the grower taking action, reducing screen gapping, and that then translating into the grower keeping thousands of euros in their bank account instead.”
4. Use the most light-transmissive screen
A grower’s primary goal is to grow, not to save energy, and for that reason energy saving will only go so far. It must never compromise the plant’s basic needs – water, nutrients, climate and, critically, light.
“It’s no use a grower installing fantastic, insulating and PAR-light-transmitting climate screens, and then us providing monitoring and advice, if the grower is unable to deploy them anyway,” says Arkesteijn.
“But this is what can happen if the screens block valuable sunlight,” he says. "To facilitate growth, it is essential to have adequate light, and the screen must minimize interference. Therefore, having a screen with maximum brightness and optimal light transmission is crucial."
A further Svensson tool is able to provide a forecast of energy use when equipment is changed or upgraded.
“Through our Energy Calculator we are able to model the impact of light transmissivity quite accurately,” explains Arkesteijn. “Recently we could show a Northern European grower, given his precise greenhouse with its specifications and prevailing weather, the difference if they used a 3% less transmissive screen.”
Why 3%? Arkesteijn explains: “When we’ve carried out tests, we have found that the difference between our Luxous 1147 screen and other offerings on the market is about 3%,” says Arkesteijn.
“The client proposal was a really satisfying process, because when we told the grower that the Energy Calculator’s algorithms had modelled his annual energy use to be 45.2 cubic meters of gas per square meter, he revealed that his actual gas use the previous year was 47. “We were very satisfied with that,” says Arkesteijn. “It means the grower then trusts the model because they see that the calculator has been built with accurate algorithms.”
To be able to do its job of insulating and saving energy, a screen must have crystal clarity. That way the need for warmth and energy saving does not conflict with the even more critical need of the plant for light.
The so-called triple bottom line of sustainability.
5. Capture additional CO2 and energy savings
The final step is to commit to the triple bottom line. Reducing energy use is good for the first P, profit, but equally reducing CO2 emissions is good for the second P, Planet.
Arkesteijn points out that when Svensson introduced the first energy screens, large growers would regularly save amounts equivalent to a million Euros a year at current energy prices, compared with no screen at all.
“We’ve analyzed our own data and when you consider that growers were not using energy screens at all when we started, Svensson screens have saved many tens of millions of tons of CO2 emissions since Svensson introduced them into the market,” says Arkesteijn.
But today, it’s really quite hard to conceive of a grower building a greenhouse without some kind of screen, he says. “Today, what drives us is to find every single incremental improvement, every last underperforming greenhouse set-up, every single screen set-up that would benefit from moving to double or triple climate screens,” he says.
“That’s the sustainability mountain we all have to climb now, and what we’re showing through tools like Energy Monitor, Energy Calculator and Luxous is that we can all achieve economic and environmental improvements, and the results is a social good, the third of the triple bottom line Ps, people,” says Arkesteijn. “We can more sustainably produce the food people need to live, work and grow,” he says.
Conclusion: Climate improvement inside and climate protection for us all
Even in the face of global uncertainties and volatile energy prices, Paul Arkesteijn believes that with these five steps growers can operate their greenhouses in a way that offers a win-win-win, for profits, people and planet.
“It makes going to work feel a little more important, and means our core values at Svensson aren’t just words on a page,” he says. “I think I see a similar impact on the growers when we show them the difference they can make,” he adds.
