Economical and ecological optimization of renewable energy solutions for thermal demands of livestock barns

This work targets sustainable livestock farming, with the aid of cost-effective, novel renewable energy sources (RESs). A literature review showed that evaluating the energy consumption in the livestock sector is not straightforward. Therefore, a model was made to estimate the heating and cooling demands of a pig farm throughout the year. Various combinations of RES technologies are compared with respect to the current installation and an economic and ecological assessment is performed. The possible technologies are: PV panels, PVT panels, solar collectors, heat pumps, wind energy and batteries (both thermal and electrical). The assessment allows estimating the investment cost, life-cycle cost (LCC) and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from energy usage of different selections and sizes of renewable technologies. The boundary conditions for the studies are taken from an actual pig farm in Belgium. Autonomous energy creation with solar energy and/or wind generation in combination with a heat pump proves to be the most promising solution to reduce GHG emissions according to the model. The model and results will be evaluated with actual performance data by means of installing heat pumps, PVT panels and thermal storage at the pig farm.