A greenhouse lighting calculator to design your project

A greenhouse lighting calculator is useful to calculate solar radiation reaching the canopy, supplemental lighting requirement, electricity cost and impact on the inner climate.

Supplemental lighting system is increasingly being used in greenhouses for crops such as cannabis or tomatoes. However, investment is very high and running costs are expensive.

Our greenhouse lighting calculator helps you to design your supplementary lighting system in your greenhouse with an optimal climate, for any project worldwide. You will be able to define the best equipment configuration, in order to reduce your energy costs.

Hortinergy is a very friendly software:

• You enter online the input parameters: lighting specificities, regulation setpoints, transparent cover…
• Hortinergy models solar transmission, assimilation lighting and the inner climate for one year,
• Hortinergy simulates energy consumption: heating, cooling, dehumidification and ventilation.

Then, you can assess the impact of many parameters and compare scenarios.

Input parameters of a greenhouse lighting calculator are:

• LED and HPS specificities : lighting intensity, efficiency…
• Regulation setpoints:
  • Day Light Integral (DLI) and minimum hours of ‘’night’’ per day,
  • or fixed monthly schedule,
  • above which solar radiation intensity lighting is switched off,
• Greenhouse transparent cover specification,
• Black out and shading screen specification and their regulation setpoints,
• GPS position to generate a weather file.

An example is shown below:

You can also define the blackout screen and its regulation setpoints as shown below :

Hortinergy’s greenhouse lighting calculator simulates your project during one year like a virtual greenhouse.

The results are :

• Solar radiation transmitted by the transparent cover and reaching the canopy,
• Supplemental lighting required, according to regulation setpoints (mol/m²/day):
  • Day Light Integral (DLI),
  • or fixed monthly schedule,
• Electricity consumption,
• Impact on the inner climate and energy consumption: heating, cooling, dehumidification and ventilation.

The reports are :

•  a pdf document with typical days and monthly summary tables
•  an Excel file with hourly data for deeper analysis.

Solar radiation reaching the canopy and supplemental lighting required

The example below shows a monthly summary :

Hortinergy models the impact of supplementary lighting on the inner climate and energy consumption (heating, cooling, dehumidification and ventilation).

The example below shows the crop transpiration and a higher inner temperature when HPS assimilation lighting is switched on from 9 to 11 AM and 4 to 9 PM to reach DLI.

Hortinergy also shows the electricity consumption and expenditures :

Hortinergy has been developed by Agrithermic in partnership with CTIFL (French Interprofessional Technical Centre for Fruits and Vegetables) and Astredhor (Horticultural institute of technology), the Agrocampus Ouest and the agricultural high school of La Cote saint André (CFPPA).