Good neighbors
Share the heat. Dairy production generate a lot of heat. Why not sell it to the greenhouse next door?
Reducing waste. A new dairy in Norway will be making money from their waste heat, selling it to a nearby greenhouse (Photo: Rambøll)
Norway’s Dairy Cooperative Tine is currently constructing a large new dairy in the Jæren region in the south west of Norway. It will be a gigantic facility covering 27.000 square meters, producing 200 million liters of milk annually and costing 1,4 billion NOK. Like most other industrialized processes, this facility will produce large amounts of waste heat. But with clever planning and the right neighbors heat need not to go to waste. Even the dairy's CO2 emissions may be put to use. Tine actually expect to have their CO2 emissions reduced by 30 - 40 % with this new dairy.
The Jæren region in the south west of Norway is dominated by the agricultural sector (Photo: Pål Berge/Creative Commons)
No heat to waste
Right next to the dairy another company, Miljøgartneriet, is constructing an energy efficient green house. The greenhouse covers 77000 square meters and will produce around 2500 tons of tomatoes annually. In spite of its size, the greenhouse will not have its own central heating. Instead it will be heated by waste heat water from its neighbor the dairy. After the water has been used to heat the greenhouse, it goes back to the dairy to run a heat pump, before it is heated again and returns to the greenhouse. To minimize heat loss the greenhouse utilizes an isolating and non-transparent material for most of their walls, relying on getting the sunshine needed through the glass ceiling. Everything inside the green house is painted white to reflect light as much as possible, and it is constructed in a way that concentrates all heat where it is needed, around the plants. Total energy use will be reduced by up to 35 % compared to ordinary greenhouses. The dairy will also help out Tine by taking care of some of their CO2 emissions. Tines CO2 will be lead into Miljøgartneriets green house and "fed" to the tomatoes plants. Carbon dioxide is central in green house vegetable production, without this cooperation Miljøgartneriet would have had to produce their own CO2.
A GREENER GREENHOUSE. Heated by its neighboring dairy a new greenhouse will reduce it's energy use by 35 %. Its main produce will be tomatoes for the Norwegian market (Illustrational photo: Istockphoto)
A green cluster
Both Tine and Miljøgartneriet stress the fact that this cooperation makes sense from an economic view. Helping each other out cuts costs for both parties; there is no element of charity involved. With both the dairy and the greenhouse in place, the Kviamarka Industrial Park will be one of Norway's largest clusters of food producers. The businesses in the industrial park have established a Forum for Energy and the Environment in close collaboration with the local authorities in Hå kommune. Hopes are that every facility in Industrial park will be connected to Tines district heating grid, and that the different businesses see the economic advantage in working together.
Further reading:
Tine's website.
Facts about Hå municipality where th industrial park is located.
