From the Portland Press Herald:
Commercial greenhouses use a lot of energy. Whether they are used to grow blooming geraniums in time for Memorial Day, tomato seedlings for the home gardener or fresh greens for Maine restaurants and grocery stores in mid-winter, it usually takes a lot of fossil fuel to keep greenhouses warm enough for plants to thrive.
Cozy Acres Greenhouses, owned and operated by Jeff and Marianne Marstaller in North Yarmouth, in July finished its first year operating a greenhouse which uses no energy from fossil fuels.
“Those signs say it all,” Jeff Marstaller said during a recent twilight meeting of the Maine Landscape and Nursery Association held at his business. The signs say, “Electricity from the sun. Heat from the Earth. Emissions at zero.”
The new greenhouse is 96-feet-by-30-feet. In a nearby field, workers installed a mile-long network of underground pipes connected to a geothermal heat pump. The electricity from 102 photovoltaic solar panels installed in the same field is used to run the heat pumps.
To read the full story visit the Portland Press Herald's website.
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