Abstract
Crop production in greenhouses supplies most agricultural products in industrialized countries while being one of the most energy-intensive operations in the agricultural sector. In the Mediterranean basin, it is estimated that the energy consumption for heating can achieve 440 kWh m a . Most of the energy used for climate control and car-bonic fertilization of these structures comes -2 -1 from fossil fuels. With the recent sharp increase in the cost of fossil energy sources due to the geopolitical threads, the impact on the price of the final product is increasingly im-portant. In the light of the decarbonization (following Mission 2 – Green transition of Italian National PNRR) and to contrast the cost increase in greenhouse crop products, there is the need to disruptively innovate how greenhouses consume energy sources. Although strategies for reducing energy use were well studied in the past (e.g., thermal insulation, shading and HVAC control, renewables), there is still the need to integrate them into a framework able to dynamically respond to drivers such as outdoor (changing) climate, production needs, (variable) costs. At the same time, interpretation of data acquired from new and cost-effective digital devices for monitoring and control-ling the greenhouse environment is essential to feedback on the operation, cultivation, and environmental impact of the greenhouse itself. The DiAGreen project aims at creating and testing digital twins, a new generation of virtual representations of agricultural greenhouses that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of physical greenhous-es. The proposed digital twins exploit the capabilities of multi-scale and multi-domain greenhouse models, histori-cal measurements from sensors, optimization approaches, and future predictions for decreasing the energy use and thus the carbon impact of greenhouses, adapting the best strategies to current and future time steps. The digi-tal twin model framework will be built on previous skills of the research consortium and developed based on two test sites to test their capabilities and potential results. In the first test site, the experimentation will be focused on the control of the climate and the energy source shifting. In the second one, the impact of CO fertilization will be tested by integrating it into the digital twin and 2 assessing the CO capability of speeding up the crop growth (thus enhancing the overall energy efficiency) and, at the same time, 2 the crop quality measured through HPLC analysis. This project, through the development of greenhouse digital twins, makes one step forward toward the Green-house 4.0 Industry. Digital twins can remarkably improve the design and operation of greenhouses, optimized in terms of energy efficiency, productivity, sustainability, and quality of the productions facing the future challenges of fossil fuels availability and costs, climate change, and future food demand.
Dettagli del progetto
Responsabile scientifico: Stefano Benni
Strutture Unibo coinvolte:
Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Agro-Alimentari
Coordinatore:
Politecnico di TORINO(Italy)
Contributo totale Unibo: Euro (EUR) 47.000,00
Durata del progetto in mesi: 24
Data di inizio
28/09/2023
Data di fine:
28/02/2026
