Industrial sustainability: Power to the tomatoes!

When it emerged from the accounting department in recent years to become a full-fledged process control variable, energy also gained the parameters, data and flexibility to further optimize processes, save money and enable sustainability, too.

For instance, the mission of Bezdinek Farm and its 11-hectare, commercial greenhouse is to provide ideal conditions for growing fresh produce year round. Located in Dolni Lutyn?, in the Czech Republic's eastern Moravian-Silesian region near Poland, the farm harvests several tonnes of tomatoes daily. It grows crops in a compostable substrate with prevailing rainwater. Plus, it uses biological pest protection instead of pesticides, and was recently the first vegetable farm in the Czech Republic to earn its prestigious pesticide-free certification (Figure 1).

"The Bezdinek farm has the most advanced greenhouse operation in the Czech Republic," says Ji?i Stod?lka, director of the Agro division at NWT (agro.nwt.cz), a local construction firm and greenhouse operator. "Its special silvicultural lights make it the only facility able to produce fresh, healthy vegetables for 12 months of the year."

These greenhouses are multiplying worldwide as sustainable alternatives to importing large amounts of produce with short shelf lives, but they require reliable and intelligent power systems. To maintain its own optimum growing conditions, including consistent temperature, humidity and light, Bezdinek Farm recently worked with NWT to implement low-voltage components from ABB (www.abb.com). These devices included air and molded case circuit breakers, AF contactors, manual motor starters, OT and InLine II fuse switch disconnectors and monitoring relays. ABB has also worked with NWT on biogas and photovoltaic facilities to make its advanced greenhouses more sustainable.

"ABB's power distribution solutions are designed for harsh operating environments, making them better suited to the heat and humidity of greenhouse operations," says Vladimir Janypka, managing director of ABB's electrification business in the Czech Republic. "We understand how important it is to deliver the reliability needed to keep the greenhouse productive. Any downtime has an immediate impact and the speed at which the tomatoes ripen."

Paolo Perani, sustainability manager at ABB, adds, "We're mostly talking about environmental sustainability these days, but this isn't new for ABB because we published our first sustainability report in 2000. Today, sustainability isn't a buzzword anymore. Sustainability is hot! Users demand what's important to them, and right now, there's a huge push to be clear about what we're doing with sustainability. They're usually very demanding about uptime and reliability of their processes, but they also care about their efficiency and operational losses. Lately, more users are asking for more sustainable materials such as recycled materials and in general to have higher sustainable products without compromising the performance."

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Source: Control Global