Final event Thesis lab ‘The Future of Energy in the Horticulture Sector’
The use of energy is a key concern in the greenhouse horticulture sector. Recently the president of the Dutch national bank, Klaas Knot, proposed to phase out greenhouse flower production altogether because of the use of scarce energy. Last week students presented the work they have been doing in the Lab ‘Energy in Horticulture’, on this complex matter.
How can greenhouse horticulture reduce its energy consumption? What are future alternative energy solutions? And what paths will lead towards such a future?
Growers keep different decision-making styles
Yashar Ghiassi, academic coordinator of this Lab, presented an alternative for the current role of the horticulture sector in stabilizing the national electricity grid by means of CHPs (Combined Heat Power installations), in the form of active demand management. According to him, sharing costs, risks, knowledge and data is key in the transition to a new more sustainable energy system for the sector.
Next, the students presented their results. They have been working on their own individual thesis and simultaneously, follow an intense, interdisciplinairy programme, with site visits, discussions, workshops and round tables, trying to grasps as many different aspects on this topic as possible.
The students paid a lot of attention to the decision processes of growers towards a more sustainable future. They distinguished individual versus collective decision making, intuitive versus data driven decision making, and they highlighted the effects of using plant sensors on decision-making.
They also distinguished different types of growers based on their decision-making styles. Two of the students did Life Cycle Analyses (LCAs) of tomato crops and organic versus traditional fertilizers. Lively discussions unfolded after every of the presentations. Again, it was great to see the successful interaction between the students’ academic studies and the interests of the sector and the wider society. A beautiful closure of this Lab.