Techno-Economic Analysis on Energy System Solutions for an Eco-Industrial Food Complex

The global food sector faces grave and urgent challenges, such as climate change and environmental degradation, requiring quick adaptation to transform today’s food systems into sustainable ones. With the world’s population projected to surpass 10 billion people by 2050, innovative solutions are necessary to meet the increasing food demand while minimising environmental impact. Eco-industrial food parks, which integrate multiple food production systems and promote circular resource flows, represent one such solution. This master’s thesis investigates the feasibility of powering a proposed eco-industrial food complex in Västervik, Sweden, using locally generated renewable energy, in collaboration with Global Food Parks. The proposed complex has three production facilities: an indoor Recirculating Aquaculture System (RAS) facility producing salmon, multiple greenhouses cultivating tomatoes, and an indoor cricket farm producing cricket meal. The long-term goal is to integrate these separate systems into a closed-loop system to enhance food security, resource efficiency, and sustainability. A techno-economic analysis (TEA) was conducted to evaluate each facility’s energy demand and propose an optimal renewable energy system configuration for the entire production complex. The thermal and electrical energy demand was estimated using two different Building Performance Simulation (BPS) tools: GreenLight for the tomato greenhouses and OpenStudio for the salmon and cricket production facilities. The estimated energy demands, combined with economic and technical data regarding renewable energy technologies, were used as input for the optimisation software HOMER Pro, to identify cost-effective energy generation solutions based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE), Simple Payback Period (PB), and Renewable Energy (RE) fraction, among others. Results indicated that combining a 50 MW solar PV system, a biogas-based genset, and optimised HVAC systems can meet the complex’s energy demand with economic and environmental benefits. The thesis demonstrated that a large-scale ecoindustrial food complex has the potential of being both technically and financially viable by depending on locally generated renewable energy.