Sept. 13, 2012: First Greenhouse CHP Project in the U.S. Is Unveiled with CO2 Fertilization
CAMARILLO, Calif. — GE and its customer Houweling’s Tomatoes, a leading North American greenhouse grower, have unveiled the first combined heat and power (CHP) greenhouse project in America that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) for use in plant fertilization. Using two of GE’s 4.36-megawatt (MW) Jenbacher J624 two-staged turbocharged natural gas engines and a GE-designed CO2 fertilization system, the plant provides heat, power, and CO2 to Houweling’s 125-acre tomato greenhouse in Camarillo, Calif.
Fueled by natural gas, Houweling’s CHP system provides 8.7 MW of electrical power and 10.6 MW of thermal power (hot water) for heating the large-scale glass greenhouses on-site. The system offers a total thermal efficiency of nearly 90 percent. When considering the avoided energy that would be required to externally source the CO2 and the recovery of water from the exhaust, the overall system efficiency approaches 100 percent, said GE. Western Energy Systems, GE’s authorized U.S. distributor of Jenbacher gas engines and part of the Penn Power Systems organization, engineered and installed the CHP plant.