Energy use of Building Integrated Agricultural (BIA) space and its impact on the host building

Abstract

The burgeoning interest in urban agriculture (UA) stems from urban densification, escalating food demand, and the imperative to enhance food accessibility. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) can be considered a viable representative of UA, gaining popularity as it enables year-round food production in cold climates and urban areas. In regions like Quebec with challenging climates, agricultural year-round output is facilitated through controlled environments, ranging from traditional ground-based greenhouses to innovative buildingintegrated agricultural spaces (BIAs). CEA offers numerous advantages, including increased crop productivity, eliminating chemical pesticide uses, and controlling indoor conditions independently of outdoor climate. However, the potential impacts of these production methods still need to be better understood due to a lack of comprehensive data and analysis. Utilizing sophisticated agriculture systems within building-integrated spaces, such as vertically stacked hydroponic setups under artificial lighting, enables precise control over environmental conditions. Accurate control of the indoor environment conditions, such as air temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, and lighting parameters (including the type of lighting, intensity and duration of photo/dark periods), results in significantly higher yields than conventional agriculture. Nevertheless, these advantages are offset by the substantial energy consumption associated with CEA practices, particularly artificial lighting. The main objective of this thesis is to quantify the effects of these indoor conditions, which are essential to mitigating the environmental footprint and energy consumption associated with performing this type of food production, emphasizing the need for thorough assessment and evaluation. The proposed study assesses the overall energy performance (i.e., annual energy consumption and peak electricity demand) of a Building Integrated Agriculture (BIA) space within its host building, a medium-sized 3-storey office building located in Montreal, modelled in EnergyPlus, for several operating scenarios featuring different indoor environment conditions. The categorized scenarios focus on Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density (PPFD), lighting type, temperature and relative humidity setpoints. Regarding assessing the BIA solely in scenarios, energy consumption ranged between 2355 and 6920 MWh, representing a 65% variation. In analyzing the host building with integrated BIA, the variation in energy consumption was similar, 66%, ranging from 2994 to 9063 MWh. The obtained results can guide the implementation of BIA spaces.

Date	24 Apr 2024
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Danielle Monfet (Supervisor)