Hot air heating costs can be cut

摘要

Companies with 'low-energy' crops usually have a very irregular gas purchasing pattern. In a free energy market this leads to high rates per cubic metre of gas. Growers and suppliers are inventively trying to find ways to reduce peak usage as much aspossible. Installing energy-saving screens, applying temperature integration or programming a smarter heating control regime can be interesting options. Contrary to greenhouses heated by a boiler and heating pipes, greenhouses heated by hot air cannot compensate for peaks in gas consumption using a heat buffer. Usually all heaters usually start up at the same moment, which negatively affects peak usage. Suppliers of climate control computers are developing software to level gas usage as far as possible.For example, Priva has created a program to enable hot-air heaters to be used in a carefully dosed manner. Total gas consumption remains the same, but is spread over a longer period. This allows the transport capacity to be limited. The highest difference between this and the actual transport capacity is used to calculate the maximum growers are charged for the entire year. The heating control system is based on the overcapacity of heaters. In the years prior to the liberalised gas market most heatingsystems were over-dimensioned to ensure an adequate heating capacity at all times. Switching off those heaters not absolutely vital to maintain the required temperature level will reduce peaks in energy use.