Abstract

The global projection of urban growth and increasing population densification creates new opportunities for an expanded role of greenhouse technology. Coupling a greenhouse with supermarket, as a method for energy sharing, has been identified as a promising method to increasing efficiency of the building operations while reducing dependency on transportation. This paper presents the results of a simulation study of an urban centric greenhouse-retail complex and explores optimal building design parameters, integrating renewable energy technologies and exploring energy sharing strategies within both buildings of the complex. The results show that with an integrated building design approach, cutting edge technologies and high energy efficiency measures a net reduction of 27% energy in the greenhouse-retail complex is achieved compared to design complying with the minimum requirement of the applicable energy codes. Additionally, by sharing waste heat recovered from retail refrigeration compressor racks, 21% of space and ventilation heating demand of the greenhouse and energy demand for irrigation water and service hot water for the complex can be met. Employing on-site renewable energy generation, net-zero energy performance of the greenhouse-retail complex can be achieved. It has been found that by feasible combination of buildings optimized to harness on-site energy and sharing energy between the individual buildings, dependence on utility grids can be reduced, in addition to having a local source of food growth for climate change resilient urban infrastructure.

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