Seawater Greenhouse

The Seawater Greenhouse (English for Seawater Greenhouse) is a greenhouse containing a seawater desalination plant and its water demand can therefore be covered with salt water, making it especially suitable for arid and water-scarce regions. Thus, the natural water cycle is simulated on a small scale in the greenhouse.

The technology has been developed since 1991 by a British company ( Seawater Greenhouse Ltd. ) And is ready for the market since the late 1990s. Greenhouses with this technique there is, on the Canary island of Tenerife (since 1992, pilot plant ), Oman (since 2006) and in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi (UAE, since 2000). Under the name of Sundrop Farms, the concept is applied commercially in Australia since 2010.

Concept

The greenhouse uses solar and wind energy for the processes that take place in its interior, however, is not completely energy self-sufficient. From the Manufacturer a power consumption of less than 3 kWh per square meter of processed water is specified, this efficiency is dependent on the weather (depending sunny, the more efficient the fresh water is generated). It consists of a steel structure that represents the actual greenhouse and a much larger, adjoining tent. In both zones, different plant varieties can be grown. The steel structure is oriented such that the wind direction can be utilized for ventilation of the greenhouse, but usually this needs to be strengthened by fans.

In the front wall of the steel structure, the incoming salt water is heated and evaporated. Through the process, incoming air is cooled, and the relative humidity is increased. The doubly constructed roof filtered infrared waves from the sunlight so that only the light required for photosynthesis enters the greenhouse, and the heated air between the two surfaces, this support is removed and then the evaporation process of the salt water.

Between steel structure tent and there is a second evaporation plant, which can rise to the dew point humidity. This air passes behind it in a capacitor is recovered in the distilled water, and is then discharged into the tent.

Awards

The concept was sustainability and the Tech Museum Award 2006 awarded the Institution of Engineering and Technology Award 2006 in the category, it still finished the Prize for the Environment, University of St. Andrews in 2007 to second place.

Sahara Forest Project

In cooperation of the manufacturer Seawater Greenhouse Ltd.. with a team of architects was founded in 2008, the concept for the Sahara Forest Project, a possible way to use a large area in deserts such greenhouses in conjunction with solar thermal systems for food production. This solar tower power plants will supply power for the pumps of the greenhouses as well as with their waste heat also support the evaporation process of seawater ( sun rays in the solar tower power plants using mirrors bundled and thus water evaporates, the steam turbine is driven ). Such a system should generate significantly more electricity and drinking water, as they needed to function according to the developers. Charlie Paton, one of the developers of the concept, estimated the cost of such a facility for a 20 -acre greenhouse complex in conjunction with a 10 - megawatt solar power plant at € 80 million. So far, investors are still looking for such a project.