Characterization of Electricity Demand in the Auxiliary Industry of the Greenhouses Agriculture in the Province of Almeria

Greenhouses in the province of Almeria, one of the largest agro-industrial clusters in the world, have been the subject of various technical and environmental analyses in which, until now, the demand for electricity has not been included in the necessary depth and detail. This circumstance is justified by the fact that productive activity on farms, in its current configuration, cannot be considered as highly energy demanding and, especially, because the impact on the balance sheets of all the industries providing auxiliary services to the greenhouses has not been taken into account. This work first presents a general approach to the energy context of the sector, identifying and assessing some of the basic indicators which determine the relevance of the activity, especially in a regional context. In addition, the need for the study is justified on the basis of demand growth forecasts due to the technification process of the farms currently underway. Next, and based on the availability of an extensive set of data on electricity consumption from eleven nuclei of industrial activity of a diverse nature, but all of which are providers of auxiliary services to intensive agriculture, the main seasonal and daily patterns of this demand have been analysed with the aim of characterising it accurately and, from there, establishing realistic and contrastable reference values when carrying out aggregate studies of the environmental impact and ecological footprint of intensive agriculture in Almería. At the same time, this study has served to advance design criteria that may favour the adoption of photovoltaic systems for the energy supply of this type of company. The consumption of the industries analysed covers a wide range of accumulated demands, between 0.2 GWh/y and 5.41 GWh/y, and has shown strong seasonal and daily dependencies related to the very stages of development of the cultivation processes of the products they serve.