Australia’s largest greenhouse tomato farm is turning to solar as gas prices bite

Growing the perfect tomato is a challenge. Farmers have to contend with volatile weather, soil quality and pests while hydrating the plant and hoping the fruit gets just enough sun to ripen.

Greenhouses across Gippsland are giving farmers the ability to control all these variables and produce tomatoes year-round, and industry leaders think advances in technology will make growing glass house crops more affordable.

Big tomato dreams: Chris Millis started growing tomatoes in a greenhouse over 30 years ago. He’s now the Chief Operating Officer of greenhouse company Flavorite, which owns six indoor farms totalling 70 hectares across Victoria.

• Flavorite’s flagship farm is in Warragul and houses Australia's largest greenhouse tomato production and an expansive indoor blueberry farm.

Millis told the Monitor there’s a lot of technological innovation happening in the greenhouse industry but one area he’s particularly keen on is utilising solar power and batteries to heat glass houses.

“The way we heat greenhouses can definitely be improved and made more efficient. We're pretty excited about that,” Millis said.

A quick greenhouse rundown 

Normally, farmers would grow tomatoes during summer and swap to another crop during winter, but greenhouses are completely controlled environments and give farmers the opportunity to grow seasonal fruits and vegetables year round.

• Farmers can grow anything they want in greenhouses but because the facilities are more expensive to build, maintain and operate than a field farm, it’s more economical to grow crops that are high volume and high value, like tomatoes or blueberries.

• More common: Millis said when he started growing tomatoes in a greenhouse 30 years ago only five percent of the tomatoes at market came from greenhouses. Now, he estimates it’s 50 percent.

A hyper-focus on efficiency: Greenhouses are protected from the weather, which gives growers the ability to completely control the climate and irrigation.

Millis said the golden rule of the greenhouses industry is to be as efficient as possible at conserving energy and water. 

• “A field producer would use somewhere above 60 litres of water to produce a kilogram of tomatoes, whereas we use around 12 litres,” Millis said. “That efficiency extends to energy use as well.”

Keeping the house warm: Particularly during winter months, greenhouses need to consume energy to stay heated. The primary way Flavorite’s farms do this is by heating water using gas boilers.

But the company is looking to change that, and has already installed solar panels on all six of its greenhouses.

Flavorite’s 33-hectare indoor farm in Warragul is partially powered by a 1.3MW solar panel system , but Millis says it's not enough to power the farm's heating requirements.

“The biggest challenge we have in terms of solar power is that our heat demand is in winter when there’s less sun, so it doesn’t line up in terms of usage,” Millis said.

Battery storage will give greenhouses the ability to hold onto excess solar energy and use that energy to power electric boilers instead of burning expensive gas.

“You need a long-term heat storage solution. Solar panels with battery storage and electric boilers can be part of the solution.”

Getting off gas

Millis said one of the main reasons he is looking to get away from burning gas is because of the volatility of gas prices.

“Gas prices are a lot higher than they were five or 10 years ago,” he said.