A greenhouse lighting calculator to design your project

A greenhouse lighting calculator is useful to calculate solar radiation reaching the canopy, supplemental lighting requirement, electricity cost and impact on the inner climate.

Supplemental lighting system is increasingly being used in greenhouses for crops such as cannabis or tomatoes. However, investment is very high and running costs are expensive.

1. Design your supplemental lighting system

Our greenhouse lighting calculator helps you to design your supplementary lighting system in your greenhouse with an optimal climate, for any project worldwide. You will be able to define the best equipment configuration, in order to reduce your energy costs.

greenhouse lighting calculator sun

Hortinergy is a very friendly software:

Then, you can assess the impact of many parameters and compare scenarios.

2. Input parameters in the greenhouse lighting calculator

Input parameters of a greenhouse lighting calculator are:

  • LED and HPS specificities : lighting intensity, efficiency…
  • Regulation setpoints:
    • Day Light Integral (DLI) and minimum hours of ‘’night’’ per day,
    • or fixed monthly schedule,
    • above which solar radiation intensity lighting is switched off,
  • Greenhouse transparent cover specification,
  • Black out and shading screen specification and their regulation setpoints,
  • GPS position to generate a weather file.

An example is shown below:

Greenhouse-lighting-calculator-light

You can also define the blackout screen and its regulation setpoints as shown below :

Hortinergy simulates on an hourly basis the solar radiation reaching the canopy and the additional assimilation lighting required to reach the DLI.

3. Results

Hortinergy’s greenhouse lighting calculator simulates your project during one year like a virtual greenhouse.

The results are :

  • Solar radiation transmitted by the transparent cover and reaching the canopy,
  • Supplemental lighting required, according to regulation setpoints (mol/m²/day):
    • Day Light Integral (DLI),
    • or fixed monthly schedule,
  • Electricity consumption,
  • Impact on the inner climate and energy consumption: heating, cooling, dehumidification and ventilation.

The reports are :

  •  a pdf document with typical days and monthly summary tables
  •  an Excel file with hourly data for deeper analysis.

Solar radiation reaching the canopy and supplemental lighting required

The example below shows a monthly summary :

greenhoused lighting calculator light

Hortinergy models the impact of supplementary lighting on the inner climate and energy consumption (heating, cooling, dehumidification and ventilation).

The example below shows the crop transpiration and a higher inner temperature when HPS assimilation lighting is switched on from 9 to 11 AM and 4 to 9 PM to reach DLI.

Greenhouse lighting calculator hourly climate

Hortinergy also shows the electricity consumption and expenditures :

Greenhouse lighting calculator energy consumption

Hortinergy has been developed by Agrithermic in partnership with CTIFL (French Interprofessional Technical Centre for Fruits and Vegetables) and Astredhor (Horticultural institute of technology), the Agrocampus Ouest and the agricultural high school of La Cote saint André (CFPPA).

With Hortinergy, you can also design semi-closed greenhouse and test different settings in order to optimise climate and energy consumption of your greenhouse project. Closed greenhouse is an interesting option to achieve an optimal climate, in hot and wet climate.

Hortinergy is an online software. You can choose your offer , create an account and start your project.