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Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Applications in Livestock Barns
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Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Applications in Livestock Barns

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B: Energy and Environment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (14 July 2022) | Viewed by 7076

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Sanjay Shah

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department, NC State University, Raleigh, NC 27695, USA
Interests: livestock barn ventilation; heating and cooling; agricultural air quality; renewable energy applications in livestock barns
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

You are invited to publish your original research in this Special Issue, which highlights the use of renewable energy and energy conservation in livestock production. While this topic is also covered in other science and engineering journals, we seek to provide comprehensive coverage of cutting-edge research on this important topic in a single issue. Consequently, we hope that this Special Issue will be useful for not only researchers (animal scientists, engineers, economists) but also manufacturers, policy makers, and commodity groups, leading to greater cooperation and application of renewable energy and energy conservation in livestock production.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Experimental evaluation of renewable energy and energy conservation in livestock production
  • Modeling of renewable energy/energy conservation system/s in livestock production
  • Economics of renewable energy/energy conservation system/s in livestock production
  • Renewable energy impacts on air quality (indoor or ambient), animal welfare, and/or performance

Here, renewable energy is defined to broadly encompass on-farm applications of solar thermal, photovoltaic, wind, biomass, geothermal, wave/tidal, hydroelectric, and hydrogen energies. The scope of this Special Issue does not include studies on materials that might be used to generate renewable energy. This Special Issue will publish original research (including case studies) and invited review papers. Review papers will only be accepted by invitation of the Guest Editor; interested researchers should submit an outline of the review paper (including justification) and a short CV to the Guest Editor.

Prof. Dr. Sanjay Shah
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • solar
  • thermal
  • heating
  • cooling
  • PV
  • wind
  • biomass
  • heat storage
  • phase change material
  • geothermal
  • animal welfare
  • animal performance
  • economics
  • modeling

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 10390 KiB  
Article
The Role of Anaerobic Digestion and Solar PV to Achieve GHG Neutrality in a Farm Setting
by Horacio Andres Aguirre-Villegas, Erin Cortus and Douglas J. Reinemann
Energies 2022, 15(6), 1975; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15061975 - 8 Mar 2022
Viewed by 1639
Abstract
Dairy farms are challenged to increase productivity while achieving environmental sustainability, where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are at the center of the discussion. The U.S. dairy industry leadership has committed to a Net Zero Initiative to achieve GHG neutrality, but the specifics on [...] Read more.
Dairy farms are challenged to increase productivity while achieving environmental sustainability, where greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are at the center of the discussion. The U.S. dairy industry leadership has committed to a Net Zero Initiative to achieve GHG neutrality, but the specifics on how to achieve this are still uncertain. Life cycle assessment methods were used to quantify GHGs and net energy intensity (NEI) of a large (1000 cows) and a small (150 cows) farm in Wisconsin. The GHGs are 1.0 and 1.3 kg CO2-eq/kg FPCM and the NEI is 2.4 and 3.2 MJ/kg FPCM for the large and small farm, respectively. The GHG benefits from anaerobic digestion (AD, sized to process all manure on both farms) and PV (sized to match AD electricity production) are not enough to achieve GHG neutrality. Increasing the capacity of these systems showed that AD is more cost-effective for the larger farm, but the challenges and costs related to securing and disposing the extra manure needed for energy production limit its feasibility. For the smaller farm, the total annualized costs to achieve GHG neutrality are lower for PV vs. AD, even before accounting for any transportation costs related to handling the extra manure. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Applications in Livestock Barns)
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9 pages, 2021 KiB  
Article
Low-Cost Solar Collectors to Pre-Heat Ventilation Air in Broiler Houses
by Yi Liang, Michael Janorschke and Chad E. Hayes
Energies 2022, 15(4), 1468; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15041468 - 17 Feb 2022
Viewed by 1242
Abstract
The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of a low-cost solar collector to pre-heat ventilation air in commercial broiler buildings on supplemental heating demand and air quality during the cold season. Six black fabric-based solar collectors of 36 m2 [...] Read more.
The objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of a low-cost solar collector to pre-heat ventilation air in commercial broiler buildings on supplemental heating demand and air quality during the cold season. Six black fabric-based solar collectors of 36 m2 each were installed on the south-facing rooftop of a broiler house. The solar collectors provided fresh warm air into the house during the ON cycle of minimum ventilation and during the OFF cycle of minimum ventilation when the temperature under the collectors met certain criteria. The daily cumulative duration of solar collectors in operation averaged 125 and 133 min during the first two or four weeks of brooding in the fall and winter flocks, respectively. When in operation, the solar collectors were able to raise up to 20 K above the ambient temperature, reducing fuel usage by 7% in the fall and winter flocks. The greatest challenge of solar collector utilization was the collectors providing less than half of ventilation air during daytime due to not enclosing the fresh air inlets. The limited airflow capacity and limited activation of the solar collectors due to the existing minimum ventilation scheme is another reason for low heating fuel savings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Applications in Livestock Barns)
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15 pages, 9347 KiB  
Article
Comprehensive Evaluation of a Landscape Fabric Based Solar Air Heater in a Pig Nursery
by Li Yu, Sanjay B. Shah, Mark T. Knauer, Michael D. Boyette and Larry F. Stikeleather
Energies 2021, 14(21), 7258; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14217258 - 3 Nov 2021
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1336
Abstract
Supplementing fossil fuels with solar air tempering for brooding young livestock could reduce energy use and improve indoor air quality. Metal transpired solar collectors (TSC) are effective but too expensive for heating livestock buildings. An inexpensive 12.7 m2 dark grey landscape-fabric-based transpired [...] Read more.
Supplementing fossil fuels with solar air tempering for brooding young livestock could reduce energy use and improve indoor air quality. Metal transpired solar collectors (TSC) are effective but too expensive for heating livestock buildings. An inexpensive 12.7 m2 dark grey landscape-fabric-based transpired solar collector (fTSC) was evaluated in a swine nursery with two herds of pigs. A fraction of the fTSC area was underlain with phase change material (PCM) to store excess heat. The Test room with the fTSC was compared with an adjacent identical Control room, each with 120 piglets. The fTSC provided supplemental heating, e.g., with a suction velocity (Vs) of 0.027 m/s during a 9 h period, air temperature was increased by 11.6 °C (mean irradiance of 592 W/m2). Between 4 pm and 9 pm that same day, the PCM increased air temperature by 3.9 °C. The fTSC did not reduce propane use or improve pig performance. Higher Vs, operational changes and controller modifications could improve system performance and reduce cost. Modeling could be used to optimize PCM use. Hence, this very low-cost fabric-based solar air heater offers potential for considerable reduction in heat energy use in livestock barns. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Applications in Livestock Barns)
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17 pages, 2867 KiB  
Article
Heating Performance and Ammonia Removal of a Single-Stage Bioscrubber Pilot Plant with Integrated Heat Exchanger under Field Conditions
by Manuel S. Krommweh, Hauke F. Deeken, Hannah Licharz and Wolfgang Büscher
Energies 2021, 14(20), 6484; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14206484 - 10 Oct 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1780
Abstract
In this study, biological exhaust air treatment was combined with a recuperative heat exchanger in one process stage. The aim of this plant development and testing is not only to reduce ammonia from the exhaust air of pig houses but also to recover [...] Read more.
In this study, biological exhaust air treatment was combined with a recuperative heat exchanger in one process stage. The aim of this plant development and testing is not only to reduce ammonia from the exhaust air of pig houses but also to recover thermal energy at the same time. This is intended to offset the high operating costs of exhaust air treatment with savings of heating costs in cold seasons and to use the plant more efficiently. This system was tested for the first time under practical conditions in a pig fattening house in southern Germany. Three different assembly situations of the heat exchanger were examined for 13 days each and then compared with each other. The heating performance of the plant is primarily dependent on the outside air temperature and secondarily on the scrubbing water temperature. Depending on the assembly situation of the heat exchanger, an average heating performance of between 6.0 and 10.0 kW was observed; the amount of recovered thermal energy was between 1860 and 3132 kWh. The coefficient of performance (COP) ranked between 7.1 and 11.5. Furthermore, ammonia removal up to 64% was demonstrated. A long-term investigation of the system under practical conditions is recommended to validate the data collected in this study. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Applications in Livestock Barns)
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