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Calculating Heating costs for commercial greenhouse

The USDA has made available a free software to help commercial growers calculate greenhouse heating costs. Virtual Grower 3.0

A section from the intro PDF:

(http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/36071000/GPRG/VirtualGro...)

A computer program was developed called Virtual Grower that combines the NREL database with standard energy calculations for greenhouse heating needs.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has a database of typical weather for 230 U.S. locations, including hourly temperature, wind speed, and solar radiation.

The download is available here:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/services/software/download.htm?softwareid=108

I would be curious to see actual figures and costs from some of our commercial AP growers.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Sahib Punjabi on November 6, 2011 at 11:23am

Thank you...good information :-)

Permalink Reply by RupertofOZ on November 16, 2011 at 12:46am

"I would be curious to see actual figures and costs from some of our commercial AP growers"

So would I Teresa..

Permalink Reply by Chris Schup on December 23, 2011 at 3:57am

Peter, thanks for explaining the main components. Would you mind posting a link to the online tool you mentioned? Thanks much.

Permalink Reply by RupertofOZ on December 23, 2011 at 4:38am

Try this Chris... I haven't read through to check it...

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/strucs/2007011814009742.html

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on December 24, 2011 at 10:22am

I used this link to get a ball park BTU figure...You can then calculate price of different fuels to get you those BTU's...Still, there are other things to consider, (especially with AP).

http://www.littlegreenhouse.com/heat-calc.shtml

Permalink Reply by Chris Schup on December 24, 2011 at 10:44am

Rupert, Peter and Vlad, just what I need. Thank you.

Permalink Reply by Vlad Jovanovic on December 25, 2011 at 10:36am

No problemo, glad it was of some use...

Yep I think that program is supposed to be used to calculate your 'worst case' energy scenario in order to size your heater, but then you can play around with the program, plugging in different params as 'best case winter scenarios' and 'averages case' days...to get a rough idea of your monthly average...(in addition to all that you've listed above :)

Using appropriate crops (for the season) as well as an appropriate fish (for your given area) should also have a big impact on your energy costs...