Investigating and comparing the environmental Impacts of greenhouse cucumber production with solar and fossil energy sources

This study investigates the life cycle assessment of cucumber greenhouse production in four cities, Karaj, Hashtgerd, Nazarabad, and Eshtehard, during the crop year 2016-2017, using three energy production systems: conventional (using electricity from fossil fuel sources and diesel for greenhouse heating), photovoltaic, and photovoltaic-thermal. The equivalent amounts of energy consumption were calculated and simulated using TRNSYS software to determine the fuel and electricity requirements of the photovoltaic and photovoltaic-thermal systems. In the next step, IMPACT2002+ method was used to investigate the pollution incidence in the scenarios for cucumber production. The results of life cycle assessments showed that in all photovoltaic system damage categories, the emissions were the least. In addition, the results showed that the total emissions were the highest in the conventional system, followed by the photovoltaic thermal system in the next well. Simulation of solar systems also showed the maximum number of panels needed for photovoltaic and photovoltaic-thermal systems in greenhouse production of 160 and 159 in order to cultivate one ha of cucumber greenhouse production. The life cycle assessment results showed that in all damage categories of the photovoltaic solar system, it has the lowest emission. Also, in the three systems, diesel fuel, photovoltaic and photovoltaic-thermal systems and in parallel with in-field emissions, have the highest share in the injury category emissions. The results showed that the highest level of damage categories, include of human health and ecosystem quality, are 0.005 DALY and 9215 PDF*m2*yr, respectively, in the scenario of energy production using the photovoltaic system and in the damage categories, include of climate change and resource amount of 6629 kg CO2 eq. and 145446 MJ primary were obtained using the conventional energy production system. Results showed that the photovoltaic solar system was the best scenario in all three scenarios.