This major new horticulture project in Kent - Thanet Earth - is a 91 hectare protected horticulture enterprise that aims to supply tomatoes and other salad crops year round.
It makes use of combined heat and power technology, with enough surplus electricity sold to the grid to supply power to 50,000 homes. The project has now published its first sustainability assessment report.
The study assessed all the various materials, construction processes and operations contributing to greenhouse gas emissions for Thanet Earth and compared these against alternative sources and techniques, including other UK production and overseas crops grown in Spain, Italy, Israel, Poland and Holland using the PAS 2050 assessment criteria.
The report finds that: peppers and cucumbers grown at Thanet Earth have a lower carbon footprint than current alternative sources; tomatoes grown without lights have a lower carbon footprint than the Mediterranean sources studied; tomatoes grown with lights have a similar carbon footprint to UK grown tomatoes without lights or CHP; and the use of combined heat and power (CHP) actually contributes a negative carbon emission towards the total measured Thanet Earth carbon footprint.
The power is produced more efficiently than most other forms of UK power generation because it utilises both the heat and electricity produced by the fuel. Both DEFRA and the PAS2050 standard recognise this carbon reduction and build it into their measurement criteria.
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