Anagrafe della ricerca

Crop production in greenhouses supplies most agricultural products in industrialized countries while being one of the most energy-intensive operations in the agricultural sector. In the Mediterranean basin, it is estimated that the energy consumption for heating can achieve 440 kWh m-2a-1. Most of the energy used for climate control and carbonic fertilization of these structures comes from fossil fuels. With the recent sharp increase in the cost of fossil energy sources due to the geopolitical threads, the impact on the price of the final product is increasingly important. In the light of the decarbonization and to contrast the cost increase in greenhouse crop products, there is the need to disruptively innovate how greenhouses consume energy sources. Although strategies for reducing energy use were well studied in the past (e.g., thermal insulation, shading and HVAC control, renewables), there is still the need to integrate them into a framework able to dynamically respond to drivers such as outdoor (changing) climate, production needs, (variable) costs. At the same time, interpretation of data acquired from new and cost-effective digital devices for monitoring and controlling the greenhouse environment is essential to feedback on the operation, cultivation, and environmental impact of the greenhouse itself. The DiAGreen project aims at creating and testing digital twins, a new generation of virtual representations of agricultural greenhouses that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of physical greenhouses. The proposed digital twins exploit the capabilities of multi-scale and multi-domain greenhouse models, historical measurements from sensors, optimization approaches, and future predictions for decreasing the energy use and thus the carbon impact of greenhouses, adapting the best strategies to current and future time steps. This project, through the development of greenhouse digital twins, makes one step forward towards the Greenhouse 4.0 Industry. Digital twins can remarkably improve the design and operation of greenhouses, optimized in terms of energy efficiency, productivity, sustainability, and quality of the productions facing the future challenges of fossil fuels availability and costs, climate change, and future food demand.