They were among the first in the Netherlands: in 2008 the Ammerlaan brothers in Pijnacker decided to heat their greenhouses with geothermal energy. They wanted to become less dependent on natural gas, because even then its price rose rapidly – although it cannot keep up with the current, historically high level.
It was not easy, says Léon Ammerlaan now. For geothermal energy you have to go deep into the ground. They drilled more than two kilometers to bring up water that is hot enough. It was also a search for the right techniques and machines. “Now it’s slowly” common knowledge”, says Ammerlaan. “But we still had to invent a lot ourselves.”
But it worked. The installation was put into use in 2010 and the family business renamed itself Ammerlaan The Green Innovator.
Meanwhile, a newer model geothermal installation is buzzing in Pijnacker, which keeps 6.5 hectares of yuccas, sansevierias and kentia palms at the right temperature. And more: “We supply hot water to more than five hundred homes, a swimming pool, a school and 75 hectares of greenhouses, from 28 growers.”
In addition to being a trader in plants, Ammerlaan is now also a trader in heat.
Greening stops
The Dutch greenhouse horticulture sector, some 3,000 companies, is often described as progressive. high tech. Innovative. It’s bursting with creative entrepreneurs who are brave and stubborn enough to try it another way – and make good money doing it. Look at Léon Ammerlaan. In 2020, the company won the Energy Award from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate.
But it’s only part of the story. The gas crisis makes it painfully clear how dependent a large part of the sector is still on fossil fuels. Agriculture is good for 7 percent of natural gas use in the Netherlands, and within the sector the largest part is accounted for by glasshouse horticulture. About a fifth of the industry’s energy consumption comes from renewable sources or waste heat, according to the latest edition of the Energy monitor of Dutch greenhouse horticulture† The rest comes largely from natural gas.
But while you would expect that the greening of greenhouses will accelerate now that the energy transition is taking shape, in practice the opposite often turns out to be true. For a few years now, it has become less attractive for horticulturalists to become more sustainable, researchers from Wageningen Economic Research concluded last year, in the report. Effects of current developments on CO . forecasts2greenhouse horticulture emissions 2030†
The enthusiasm for sustainable energy projects among horticulturists and investors has ‘turned negatively’, the researchers write. It will be ‘a tough challenge’ to rekindle the enthusiasm of entrepreneurs for greening. “Confidence in the future is a key concept when it comes to enthusiasm. Confidence comes on foot and goes on horseback.”
As a result of these developments, achieving the climate goals has fallen further behind. ‘Substantial’ increase in CO . projections2reduction in 2030 – an important intermediate step towards 2040, in which the sector wants to be climate neutral – is ‘necessary’, the report says.
Photo David van Dam
Photo David van Dam
Wrong incentives
The drop in CO2emissions in the greenhouse horticulture sector have stagnated in recent years and emissions have even increased slightly in 2020. As a result, the sector did not meet its own sustainability target for 2020.
How is that possible? There are several reasons for the increase, such as the increase in the total surface area of greenhouses. But there are also ‘a number of wrong incentives’, says Pepijn Smit of Wageningen Economic Research, one of the authors of the report on emissions from greenhouse horticulture.
Roughly speaking, the gap between a sustainable and a conventional greenhouse has grown in recent years. Sustainability has become more expensive. And sustainability is also complicated: realizing a gasless greenhouse is anything but easy. Geopolitics plays a role, the market plays a role, but this is partly due to the government, says Smit. “The sector and its partners want to make the transition from fossil to sustainable. But the government is responsible for fiscal and policy rules that are detrimental to greenhouse horticulture.”
The biggest pain point was a much higher levy on electricity for entrepreneurs since 2019. This levy – in full Sustainable Energy Storage – is intended to increase the subsidy pot for sustainability, but is actually an obstacle to greening in greenhouse horticulture.
Gardeners who buy a lot of electricity noticed it in their wallets. Such as Rob Baan, owner of Koppert Cress, which grows ‘micro vegetables’ for restaurants worldwide. Years ago, Baan chose to make his greenhouses more sustainable: they store heat in the summer and have LED lighting. Job was „extreme pissed off” when he suddenly had to pay a lot more for his green electricity.
Baan, director of the sector organization Greenhouse Horticulture in the Netherlands and in 2020 Agricultural Entrepreneur of the Year, calls the levy “a flaw. You penalize the forerunners by having a sustainable company help pay for the laggards.” And, as he likes to say, “You can’t be green if you’re red.”
He decided to switch on his gas installation, which he can also use to generate electricity. “It is still running, because there is a great need for power.”
Energy sales
The gas installation is also fully operational at other horticulturists. The heat and power generated by the gas combustion – ‘combined heat and power’, CHP – is not only for own use, but also for sale. Because if natural gas is expensive, electricity (which is generated with gas) is also expensive, so selling it is lucrative. And while horticulturalists are already taking advantage of reduced tax rates on natural gas, they don’t even pay any tax at all on gas that they use to generate electricity.
“It is too attractive to leave the CHP on,” concludes Martijn Blom, of environmental consultancy CE Delft. He also did several times research into sustainability in greenhouse horticulture†
In fact, there is quite a bit to be said for the CHP. The residual heat comes in handy in the greenhouse, just like the released CO2: they use plants for photosynthesis. It is also a flexible way of producing electricity: the CHP can easily be switched on and off.
But CHP has only relative advantages, says Blom. It is better than buying gray electricity, but you continue to use fossil fuels. And that relative advantage quickly evaporates, he says, with the greening of the electricity supply in the Netherlands. The CHP ‘no longer justifies the favorable tax position’.
Blom sees another unfavorable incentive in the common CO2ceiling for the sector. If the limit is exceeded, all horticulturalists must pay an additional amount in proportion to the energy consumption. “In theory” that should work, according to a CE Delft report from 2020 to which Blom co-wrote. But the system has “too few individual incentives” to be effective. The settlement is also several years behind schedule, which undermines the sense of urgency. “It is a free riderproblem,” said Blom. “Reducing natural gas consumption is primarily a joint effort, while avoiding the fine is an individual benefit.”
The government now also realizes that the sector ceiling is not working. Last week was announced that it will be abolished in 2025. In addition, only a handful of growers pay for their CO2emissions via the European emissions trading system ETS. Revealed in 2019 NRC that the government had actively helped dozens of greenhouse horticultural companies to evade this system.
Photo David van Dam
heat roundabout
What does pot plant grower Léon Ammerlaan see as the biggest obstacle to sustainability? He doesn’t have to think long about it. He sees around him that the problem mainly lies ‘with obtaining permits’. Wageningen Economic Research also concludes that. For example, in geothermal energy projects, the “package of requirements has increased,” the researchers report. They point, among other things, to the ‘social discussion’ about the safety of geothermal energy projects.
Pijnacker in South Holland, where Ammerlaan’s company is located, is located in an area for intensive horticulture called the Oostland. The company is on the list for connection to a large ‘heating roundabout’, which links producers and receivers of heat. “From the port in Rotterdam, via The Hague with branches to the West and East country.” But the project is difficult to get off the ground, says Ammerlaan. “If all goes well, the first pipes will go into the ground soon.”
He says that this has been ‘haggled about’ for years by those involved, such as the municipality, province and Gasunie. And not all gardeners were thrilled. They had to sign for the purchase of a quantity of heat, without knowing the price. “And gas was very cheap.”
That debate also flared up about biomass, another frequently used alternative energy source in greenhouse horticulture. Last Friday the cabinet decided therefore immediately stop new subsidies for ‘woody’ biomass.
How should the greenhouse horticulture continue? For the sector as a whole, it is “still feasible” to be climate neutral by 2040, Blom believes. But then the horticulturists, with government support, will have to get to work. “Heating network, geothermal energy, residual heat: switching to that is the only way to survive.”