A promising new project could more than halve the energy consumption at the nation’s greenhouses

A heat storage project on the island of Funen could pave the way for a 60 percent reduction in greenhouse energy costs, reports trade publication Ingenøren.

Horticultural centre Gartneriet Hjortebjerg in Søndersø, north-west of Odense, has invested 10 million kroner in the project, which is experimenting with storing the summer’s heat for use in the winter. Special curtain panels in the greenhouses trap heat from the sun in the summer and transfer it to the groundwater where it is stored until needed.

Hjortebjerg has received an additional 4 million kroner for the project from the Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry.

Greenhouses are typically heavy energy consumers. The 500 or so greenhouses nationwide are responsible for 0.9 percent of the country’s total energy usage.

But greenhouses could eventually become energy producers, according to Jesper Mazanti Aaslyng, the head of the horticultural innovation department at Agrotech.

‘Our data for the project shows that the numerous greenhouses around Odense could produce heating for 19,000 homes,’ he said.

Several different companies and researchers are behind Hjortebjerg’s unique solar curtains.

Swedish firm AB Ludvig Svensson produced the curtains, which consist of 300-400 layers of plastic foil. The thickness of each layer is measured by nanometres.

The rolling in and out of the curtains and control of carbon dioxide allocation is being handled by software from the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller Institute at the University of Southern Denmark.

The greenhouse industry in Denmark is Europe’s second largest, behind only The Netherlands.