Comparison of heating and cooling loads in a controlled environment growing-finishing piggery under different climatic conditions

Abstract

Transient simulation was used to study the heating and cooling loads in growing-finishing piggeries under different climatic conditions aiming at always keeping the inside temperature and relative humidity within the animals' production space. Hourly climatic data from Heraklion in South Greece and Kastoria in North Greece, the pigs' sensible and latent heat loads, the heat flow through the building elements and the carbon dioxide concentration control ventilation heat loads were considered. For all studied weights (40 kg, 70 kg and 100 kg) the annual heating loads for Heraklion were zero and for Kastoria ranged from 1.8 kWh/m2year to 2.92 kWh/m2year or 0.04 kWh/kg to 0.02 kWh/kg. The corresponding cooling loads for Heraklion were 1.86 to 1.9 times higher than for Kastoria, namely 359.02 kWh/m2year to 669.30 kWh/m2year vs. 188.84 kWh/m2year to 359.76 kWh/m2year or 7.02 kWh/kg to 5.24 kWh/kg vs. 3.69 kWh/kg to 2.81 kWh/kg. An efficient energy design of the piggery (i.e. appropriate orientation, proper insulation thickness and summer sun shading using deciduous trees) would possibly result in a significant reduction of cooling loads, which could be covered using an air-conditioning system operating based on renewable energy technologies.