The main goal of EFREE-Green is to develop an economic, environmental, and socially sustainable system for year-round smart farming to deliver safe and healthy vegetables.
The project targets several challenges in the Norwegian greenhouse sector, including the societal challenge of improving food self-sufficiency in Norway and the industry challenge of reducing energy consumption, consumption of fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse gases.
It focuses on increasing crop yield and fruit quality using an innovative technology named Smart environmental control system (ECS). It is the first time this system is implemented in Norway.
The ECS uses supplemental LED light and high CO2 concentrations to increase crop size and fruit quality, as well as reducing energy consumption through optimized environmental conditions in the greenhouse by utilizing optimal controller parameters and heat pump efficiency.
The project will involve an interdisciplinary team with diverse expertise and will be carried out over a 3-year period. The Norwegian Institute for Bioeconomy (NIBIO), in Særheim (Rogaland) is the project leader.
The project started in 2023, and it will end in 2026. Most of NORSUS activities are planned in the latter half of 2025 and the first half of 2026.
NORSUS is responsible for WP6 entitled environmental and social analysis. We will quantify the environmental and social impacts of the developed smart farming system in comparison with data from traditional greenhouses in Norway by using the methodologies of environmental (E-LCA) and social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA). The LCA will be comprehensive and will also include impacts such as production of buildings, equipment, and machinery. WP6 will address the hypothesis that a smart farming system has less environmental and social impact compared to a traditional farming system.
We believe our competence will be a good complementation to the expertise of NIBIO and the other partners in the project.
The project received funding by the Norwegian Research Council in the call Collaborative and Knowledge-building Project under the grant agreement 344542.
