New Perspectives for Energy Savings in Agriculture: Current Progress in Solar Technologies

In its continuing efforts to improve production and storage , European agriculture and food industry consumes ever more energy. Hence, as was the case for all European sectors founded on intensive energy consump- tion, agriculture was also severely affected by the shortages and price increases of conventional energy sources over the past decade. The energy consciousness generated in this way led to a widespread con- sideration of the application of other, renewable energy sources. The potential applications in agriculture are, however, extremely diverse, and this explains to a great extent the fragmentary nature and even in some cases the mediocre level of current research. The objective of this book is, therefore, to guide the reader in a syste- matic way through the apparent chaos of operational data which are currently available on the subject matter: thermal applications within agriculture of solar energy by means of solar collectors, passive designs and storage devices. While in volume I of this series H this area is assessed from a more general economic perspective, this tome II takes a more detailed technical approach. The results of this book were produced in the form of a European concerted action under the leadership of the Commission in Brussels. All possible data were collected by national representatives in the EC member countries. Coordinators were Professor V. Goedseels and Mr E. Van der Stuyft from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Professor G.