Energy saving in a urban farm with a heat pump

Abstract

Despite the high urbanization in the world, at the level of 55% in Europe and the USA, there is still a culture of home gardening in cities, both for decorative purposes and for growing crops for consumption in the household. This tradition is favored by the prevalence of low-rise buildings, whose share in the USA is 92%, in Europe 80%, in Russia only 52%. Due to the lack of access to land, the inhabitants of Russia need new approaches to crop production, which will allow access to fresh vegetables at home, such methods can be aero and hydroponic plants that allow growing plants without soil, and these plants can be easily automated. Due to the specifics of the housing stock in Russian cities, a balcony or a loggia was determined as the best place for installing personal farms. The balcony or loggia are unheated rooms of the apartment, redevelopment with the balcony or loggia attached to the room or the transfer of heating devices is prohibited, therefore, to arrange optimal conditions for plants, along with warming, this room must be heated. Calculations showed that to maintain the required temperature on the insulated The balcony of an apartment building in Moscow will require 7488 MJ of thermal energy for the entire heating period. The cost of electricity costs per year, when using a heat pump, can be reduced by more than 35% compared to electric heating, and the energy consumption during conditioning is also taken into account in the total cost of heat supply using a heat pump, which allows you to create more favorable temperature conditions in summer.