EnviroFresh taking the heat
Greenhouse complex will grow peppers using heat from Terra Industries
Posted By Heather Wright, www.todaysfarmer.ca Today’s Farmer
By December, peppers will be coming to a supermarket near you from a Lambton County greenhouse like no other.
EnviroFresh Farms is in the middle of construction of a massive complex south of Courtright that’s the first in Ontario to use waste energy from an existing industry to reduce production costs and help the environment.
The first of five phases of the 123-acre greenhouse is under construction, at a cost of $20 million.
A large part of the initial cost of the project is linking the greenhouse with Terra Industries. EnviroFresh will take carbon dioxide and excess heat that Terra would have otherwise simply emitted into the atmosphere to help run the complex.
Derek Schumann of EnviroFresh Farms says the link with private industry is a first in the province. It will cut the greenhouses’ operating costs by about 30 per cent and increase productivity by using the carbon dioxide that if released contributes to the production of acid rain.
“The plants really need CO2 to grow,” Schumann says. “If we don’t inject CO2 into the greenhouse, than in that atmosphere area it will actually be depleted and will hurt the plant. Supplying CO2 to the greenhouse will really increase our production by about 20 per cent.”
Greenhouses are big energy users. The buildings must be kept at a constant temperature of about 21 degrees Celsius.
“When it’s minus 25 outside, you really need a lot of heat,” Schumann said.
Instead of the traditional natural gas heating used in greenhouses, the company will use waste heat from Terra.
“At Terra it’s coming out as steam, but that steam will go through a heat exchanger and supply us with hot water,” he said. “The hot water will be stored in a five-million litre tank and then distributed in the greenhouse, so we can choose the temperatures we like in the greenhouse.”
The move will save the company about 30 per cent of its expense since heating costs are a major factor in the greenhouse business.
The EnviroFresh greenhouse complex would require the same amount of natural gas as 1,300 homes if it used the traditional heat source.
“That’s a lot of energy we’re not using and that local industry would be wasting into the atmosphere,” said Schumann.
Construction is well underway at the complex, with a sea of steel framing rising from the ground in front of Terra’s industrial complex.
Schumann expects the first 700,000 pepper plants will arrive on site to be planted in December. It will be February or March before the first yellow, red and orange peppers are shipped from the Courtright plant to stores in the U.S. and southern Ontario.
The company plans four more phases, each valued at $10 million, to complete the 123-acre complex. When fully operational, up to 300 people will work at EnviroFresh.
Today’s Farmer Article ID# 1685109