Abstract
Livestock buildings are energy consumers and aggravate the environment directly through their emissions and indirectly through the natural sources consumption. The contribution of energy consumption in the total production cost increases as the mechanization level and the conventional energy cost arises. In the present work the total energy consumption in poultries and its distribution according to the type of energy and the type of application is approached in two ways: a) The operational rating through the process of energy audit and, b) The asset rating where the thermal needs of the chambers are calculated using a source analytical explicit model in hourly time step. In terms of final energy consumption the energy per unit area ranges between 30 and 130 kWh/m2 and in terms of primary energy between 70 and 180 kWh/m2, depended on the chamber insulation, location and automation level. The insulation can contribute mostly in mountainous area and the automation level in lowland units. An insulation thickness of 4 to 5cm is recommended for lowland farms and 6cm for mountainous farms. Further insulation cannot offer benefit since ventilation heat losses represent significant percentage of the total heat losses and can be reduced with automatic ventilation control.
Highlights
Livestock buildings in general and poultry facilities are energy consumers [1]
The first approach, which is the first stage of the energy audit, is an operational rating approach, which means that the energy consumption is calculated directly using the data of the energy bills and of the production data
In general the average yearly energy consumption of the examined farms lies in the limits suggested by international literature for broiler houses e.g. between 60 to 80 kWh/m2, with the lowland farms achieving better than the expected score and the mountainous farms to be a little bit worse than that
Summary
Livestock buildings in general and poultry facilities are energy consumers [1]. The interest in energy consumption in poultry began in the mid-70s due to energy crises During this period the concepts of primary energy and life cycle analysis were introduced in the relevant literature in early form [2]. The work of this period is summarized in a review paper [3] where tables with energy consumption along with general directions for energy saving measurements in broiler houses are presented. In the present work this methodology is used in 8 poultry farms (26 chambers) and further developed in order to calculate energy indices in terms of final and primary energy consumption. As a method for reduction of energy consumption is proposed the wall insulation and the use of automation for ventilation, heating and cooling control
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