When energy is cheap you do n’t often worry about the cost of using heat for humidity control . This is because the advantages of a good giving up and disease costless crop far outweigh the cost of ensure humidity . However , when the toll of muscularity increase , you are leave ask " Can I open to control humidity ? "
In 2008 gamy energy prices pass one greenhouse to take the view that active humidness control should be minimized that year . This may have left them exposed to potential disease problem ; so was it the proper determination ? In this article , Nathalie Key with AHDB describes a study they carried out on humidness control scheme .
A comparison of humidity strategies"We compare the performance of two indistinguishable greenhouses go under two different humidness control strategies – with optimize humidness control and with no dynamic humidness control . "
The size of it and layout of the nursery gave the researchers the unequaled opportunity to liken the performance of two monovular greenhouse manoeuvre under different humidity control strategies . They therefore did side by side comparisons of the undermentioned two feeler .
The graphical record in Figures 1 and 2 show the heating plant pipe temperatures and the climate in the two greenhouses on the same day .
Figure 1 : Greenhouse with humidity ascendency
Figure 2 : glasshouse without humidity control
" If we look at the night flow we can see that the greenhouse with humidity control had an median RH of 85 % compare to 90 % in the ‘ no control ’ greenhouse . However , to achieve this , the pipe temperature in the humidity control house was 10oC hotter . "
What does humidity control cost?“We calculate the cost of our optimized humidity restraint strategy and consider the potential advantages and value of such a scheme . "
Over the period of time from 16:00hrs to 08:00hrs :
Active humidity control required heating for the entire 14 hour at an average organ pipe temperature of 35o , and no humidity control used heating system for 12½ hours at an average pipe temperature of 21o
" We can use this information with data about the nursery temperature , warming pipe length and diam and boiler efficiency to reckon the heat used in each scenario . "
On this night the active humidity control used 0.7kWh / m2 more energy , cost an extra 1.75p / m2 . free-base on the flora tightness of 9 plant / m2 , the cost of humidity control on this night was therefore 0.2p / flora .
Scenario comparison
However , do n’t assume that humidity control costs 0.2p / plant every nighttime . This was a bad case Nox with mild temperatures ; so humidness control was particularly difficult . On a colder dark more passion would have been call for to keep up the temperature in the ‘ no humidity control ’ block and the differences between the intervention would have been equaled out .
