Houweling’s launches waste heat and CO2 recovery system
Houweling’s launches waste heat and CO2 recovery system
Houweling’s Group, a leading greenhouse vegetable grower and marketer with over 200 acres of farms, announced the launch of its patent pending waste heat and CO2 recovery system implementation at its Mona, UT, greenhouse farm.
While designed to complement Houweling’s patented Ultra Clima greenhouse, the unique recovery system will have applications in any controlled agriculture environment that would otherwise require supplemental heat and CO2 from other sources.
A win for sustainable agriculture, Houweling’s said the opportunities for this technology extends far beyond indoor growing environments. The ability to utilize wasted thermal energy is a benefit for any building or operation that requires heat, including business parks, apartment complexes, shopping malls and government buildings. The ability to capture and store thermal energy further enhances the broad applications for Houweling’s system.
In the case of the company’s Utah farm, it was built next to an existing natural gas power plant. As such, Houweling’s is able to transfer low-grade heat and CO2 from the industrial stacks, utilizing proprietary technology. Once on-site, the heat is stripped out to be stored and used on demand. The CO2 is distributed into the greenhouse for plant fertilization.
“I am incredibly proud of this project,” Casey Houweling, chief executive officer of Houweling’s, said in a press release. “It required substantial research, development and testing, not to mention a significant capital investment in the prototype. But with the commitment of our team and project partners, what was once an idea and a dream, has become a reality.”
