Porta Nova is the world’s largest grower of Red Naomi roses, and we aim to deliver absolute top quality. We annually grow around 30 million Red Naomi roses, which delight around 10 million people every year.
During the Dutch summer, there are often days that are too hot to grow perfect quality roses with large buds. And this is something Porta Nova refuses to put up with. In 2008, we became the only rose grower in the Netherlands to invest in an ultra-modern, ingenious cooling/heating system: “The Climator”. We use it to cool the greenhouse in summer and heat it in winter, so we can guarantee that the roses we grow are of the best possible quality, every day of the year! This is achieved without using power hungry air conditioning; we use a very environmentally friendly system instead.
How “The Climator” works:
Scheme explaining how the Climator system works
In summer, the greenhouse is cooled using cold water that is pumped from a depth of 100 meters behind the premises into a 6000 m3 daily storage tank.
By using this daily supply, plus the cold water produced by the heat pump, we can cool the greenhouse and create an ideal temperature inside, no matter the circumstances outside the greenhouse.
The “Climator” plays an important part in this process. The heat exchanger very efficiently transfers the cold of the water to the greenhouse air, thus heating the cooling water at the same time. The heated water that is returned from the greenhouse then gets pumped back into the ground to the same depth at the front of the site. This means the water is not actually consumed or wasted; it is just used to carry energy.
In winter, the greenhouse is heated using the hot water stored in the ground in summer. This is pumped up to the heat pump, which increases the temperature of the water to 35°C. The water is then used to heat the greenhouse. On the other side of the heat pump, the water is cooled down to 5°C, and is stored in the ground for the coming cooling season. This way, all excess summer heat from the summer is used to heat the greenhouse in winter. It means it is no longer necessary to use fossil fuels such as gas to heat the greenhouse. In fact, there is a huge excess of heat, which could be used to heat 3000 homes. The drawing below shows the energy flows.
The future:
Our customers were so happy with the results of growing with the “Climator” that we are proud to announce that we have invested in the future once more. In October 2013, we equipped our second site with the unique “Climator” system. We also maximised the light levels. As a result, the quality of our roses in this greenhouse is now equal to that of the roses at our newest site. You can expect our roses to have large buds, thick stems and a long vase life all year round!
