Reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Romanian agriculture using renewable energy sources

This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility, regarding environmental and economical point of view, of a local tomato farm powered by an offshore wind farm for Romanian Black Sea coast, where there are no such projects implemented and just one is foreseen so far. In this regard, both the agricultural farm and the offshore wind farm were dimensioned and using a new methodology proposed in the year 2023 by the World Bank, an environmental analysis of the project was made with estimating the positive effects that occur in the GHG emissions at the implementation of this project. The relationship between energy inputs and farm yields is analysed for two cycles of tomato crops and a comparative evaluation is conducted to emphasise the favourable influence that the implementation of the proposed solution would exert on the carbon footprint of Romania's agriculture sector. The two scenarios considered are Scenario 1 - S1 with tomato farm in the Schitu area (in greenhouses powered by an offshore wind farm, Cycle 1 and in open field, Cycle 2) and Scenario 2 - S2 when the tomatoes are imported from proximate regions. For both cycles, the energy ratio and energy productivity values were calculated, obtaining 0.11 and 0.13 for cycle C1, and 0.67 and 0.84 for cycle C2, respectively. The benefits of the proposed solution presented in S1 are represented by a) enhancing agricultural production by exploiting a renewable energy source with a yearly production of 45.07 GWh; b) reducing the transport distance of tomatoes by 324,057 km; c) promoting the local economy by employing an average of 124 people; d) improving the carbon footprint of Romania's agricultural sector with a reduction of CO2e per year of 43.13%. © 2024 The Author(s)