Energy Performance and Indoor Environmental Control of Animal Houses: A Modelling Tool

The energy-related products Directive (ErP) 2009/125/EC has set a new generation of equipment that are more energy efficient and reliable. In the case of climate control for livestock housing, a key role can be played by EC motors direct drive variable flow fans that can be used instead of traditional AC fans in applications like broiler or dairy houses. The energy consumptions of such fans strictly depend on the specific application and on the outdoor weather conditions, and there is therefore the need to forecast their energy performance by means of computational tools. In this work, we present a tool developed by the Authors and based on a dynamic model for the estimation of the global (electricity, natural gas, etc.) annual energy consumption of a system installed into an animal house. The calculation is based on a customization of the ISO 13790 Standard simplified hourly model for the energy performance assessment of broiler houses.