Evaluating Different Greenhouse Cooling Systems in Various Climate Zones of Iran Considering Water Scarcity

This paper aims to develop a profound framework that opts the most techno-economic cooling system considering different climate zones of Iran, water and energy carrier prices, and the crop’s cultivation conditions as well as enabling policy makers to come up with a water price to persuade the farmer to choose the least water consuming cooling system for the greenhouse. Three different cooling systems of fan and pad, direct expansion and absorption chiller are evaluated for five various climate zones of Iran. The evaluation takes place in three scenarios in which the first and second scenarios assesses all three cooling systems under the current and real price of water, while the third scenario obtains the optimal price of water that the cooling system get selected based on least water consumption. Results show that the fan and pad cooling system that formerly was believed to be the most economic one, is actually not the most techno-economic system for all climate zones of Iran but, the direct expansion system with the mean equivalent cooling cost of 0.0427 and 0.2733 $/kWh merits over the fan and pad system with the mean equivalent cooling cost of 0.051 and 0.8264 $/kWh in first and second scenario respectively. At last, the third scenario suggests the policy makers to increase the water price by 17.4% so that the farmer is persuaded to select the most water conservative cooling system in all the climate zones of Iran.