How can you get a higher turnover with a lower energy bill?

Some crops, such as cannabis and roses, benefit from high light levels. Cannabis grows faster with a lot of light; roses develop more stems and need less time to grow into a saleable product. For various crops, a high light level is therefore important for production and turnover.

 

A higher light level automatically means more heat, which in many cases is not desirable. HPS lamps become so hot that lighting with high light levels is not possible over longer periods of time. In addition, the temperature in the entire greenhouse rises, which makes the climate increasingly difficult to control and also has a negative effect on the temperature of the plant.

The current solution is to keep this heat under control by means of cooling systems. This requires a substantial investment with a high energy bill, but the climate will never really stabilize.

For that, you need a sustainable solution, because only not lighting is cheaper.

Active cooling

Oreon cools its LED fixtures by means of an active water cooling process. The water directs the heat away from the LEDs and out of the fixture. As a result, the fixtures are not only able to provide a higher and more constant light level, but it follows logically that there is also much less excess heat in the greenhouse or a climate-controlled cell. It eliminates the need for large HVAC systems and thus keeps investment costs and energy bills down.

Indoor cannabis cultivation

A cannabis plant can tolerate very high light levels, but at the same time the crop benefits from a stable climate. A stable temperature is particularly essential for the cultivation of medicinal cannabis. For processing, the amount of active substances (THC and CBD) in the plant must remain the same to the greatest extent possible, and fungi can easily develop if the temperature fluctuates too much. This is a big challenge in the greenhouse, but especially for indoor cultivation. Here too, growers have to deal with sky-high energy bills, partly caused by expensive HVAC systems that consume a lot of energy. An active water-cooled LED fixture offers a welcome solution to this: a stable temperature and lower energy consumption.

More roses per square meter

The year 2021 was not an easy one for rose growers, and the forecast for this year shows little sign of improvement. Fortunately, developments in cut rose cultivation are ongoing; the growth and quality of the crop can be controlled better, and more growers are switching from HPS to a hybrid configuration or even to full LED.

Thanks to the high light levels that can be achieved with LED, it is possible to grow more roses per square meter. With HPS, this would only be feasible if the roses were lit 24 hours a day. However, laws governing light pollution prohibit this, and force growers to “screen.” This means extra heat in the greenhouse, so you have even less control over the temperature and humidity in the greenhouse.

Oreon’s “rose spectrum” makes it possible to grow more high-quality cut roses very efficiently. The Ukrainian rose grower Ascania has been using water-cooled LEDs since 2020, which has resulted in 30% more light as well as 30% more yield.

How much can you save?

With the current high energy prices, it is obvious that it is cheaper to use LED compared to HPS, but how much does this really save? First of all, you need far fewer fixtures to achieve a specific light level. A high-quality LED fixture emits about twice as much light as an HPS fixture. Moreover, an LED light consumes on average 45% less energy than an HPS light. So do the math on that profit.

In addition, the heat from the LEDs is carried away directly by the water cooling feature. The heat from HPS, on the other hand, is removed by cooling systems. Calculations have shown that it reduces the heat in a climate-controlled cell by as much as 65%. This means it also requires 65% less cooling capacity and therefore significantly lowers energy consumption.

In addition, even more energy can be saved because the heat that is carried away can be reused. That’s heat that you don’t have to purchase from the heat network. Very sustainable.