Greenhouse Cooling & Ventilation Calculator.
Size ventilation airflow, exhaust fans, evaporative pad area, fogging water and cooling energy for a commercial greenhouse from your local design climate, cover and shading, and the ventilation strategy you intend to procure.
Greenhouse Cooling & Ventilation Calculator
Size ventilation airflow, exhaust fans, evaporative pad area, fogging water and cooling energy for a commercial greenhouse from your local design climate, cover and shading, and the ventilation strategy you intend to procure.
Estimate only — not a quotation. Outputs are indicative planning ranges based on the values you enter and typical commercial benchmarks. Real pricing, specifications and lead times vary by country, site conditions and supplier, and are confirmed only in written offers collected through a private RFQ.
Local climate and design inputs
Northern Europe 700–800; Mediterranean 850–950; arid Gulf 950–1,050.
Summer design dry-bulb for your site, not the annual average.
Decides how much evaporative cooling is physically available.
Glass ~80%, double-inflated film ~65–70%, aged film lower.
Cellulose pads, exhaust fans, closed sides
Hours the system runs at meaningful duty across the season.
Planning values only. Final fan selection, pad sizing, static pressure, vent mechanics and control strategy require engineering design against your site data.
Turn this estimate into a qualified project
SeedMatchGroup is a supplier-neutral, human-led platform. We do not manufacture or resell equipment — we help buyers specify the project, review relevant suppliers privately and compare the written offers received. Supplier participation and timing are not guaranteed.
Method and assumptions
Sensible heat load is peak solar radiation multiplied by cover transmission, reduced by the shading fraction you actually deploy, over the covered floor area. Half of the transmitted energy is treated as sensible heat; the remainder leaves as latent heat through crop transpiration, which is why a healthy full crop cools itself better than an empty house.
Airflow follows the air heat balance: load ÷ (air density 1.2 kg/m³ × specific heat 1,005 J/kg·K × allowable temperature rise). Where an evaporative stage is in scope, inlet air is pre-cooled toward the wet-bulb temperature — 80% pad effectiveness or 45% for fogging — so dry climates gain several degrees and humid climates gain very little. Fan count assumes roughly 38,000 m³/h per 50-inch exhaust fan at 30 Pa, pad face area assumes 1.5 m/s face velocity, and natural ventilation is checked against a 25% vent-to-floor ratio.
Energy is installed fan power (about 25,000 m³/h per kW) plus pad or fogging pump power, run at 65% average duty across the cooling hours you enter. Evaporative water use converts absorbed heat at 0.63 kWh per litre.
Limitations: this tool does not model static pressure losses through insect mesh, house orientation and wind, screen gaps, CO₂ strategy, dehumidification, or crop-specific VPD targets. Use it to frame the RFQ, then confirm with climate engineering and local weather data.
Worked example
A 2 ha house in a dry climate at 850 W/m², 70% transmission and 40% shading carries about 3,570 kW of sensible load. At 36 °C and 35% RH, an 80% effective pad drops inlet air to roughly 30.3 °C, so holding 28 °C inside leaves a small working gradient — the airflow requirement, fan count and pad area all rise sharply, which is exactly the trade-off buyers must see before suppliers quote.
Frequently asked questions
Mechanically ventilated houses are commonly sized between 40 and 60 air changes per hour, or roughly 0.03–0.05 m³/s per m² of floor area, in hot climates. The correct figure is derived from the solar heat load and the temperature rise you are willing to accept between inlet and exhaust, not from a rule of thumb.
Sensible heat load = solar radiation × cover transmission × floor area × (1 − shading) × sensible fraction. Airflow = sensible load ÷ (1.2 kg/m³ × 1,005 J/kg·K × allowable ΔT). A smaller allowable temperature rise multiplies the fan and pad requirement quickly.
Natural ventilation with shade screens works where outside design temperature stays below roughly 30 °C. Pad-and-fan becomes necessary in dry, hot climates where evaporative cooling can drop inlet air several degrees; high-pressure fogging suits mixed climates and houses with good roof ventilation. In humid tropics, evaporative capacity is limited and the design shifts toward ventilation area, shading and crop timing.
Evaporating one litre of water removes about 0.63 kWh of heat, so a 1,000 kW sensible load absorbed evaporatively consumes roughly 1,590 litres per hour at full duty. That water must be in the reservoir sizing and, for recirculating pad systems, in the water-quality and bleed-off scope.
No. SeedMatchGroup is supplier-neutral and does not manufacture equipment. The calculator helps you specify airflow, pad area, fan duty and energy so any written supplier responses can be compared against one scope.
Send these numbers to the RFQ Builder
The numbers below were calculated with SeedMatchGroup's Greenhouse Cooling & Ventilation Calculator. Indicative — the specialist will confirm scope before contacting suppliers.
16 inputs · assumptions · results
RFQ scope generated from your inputs
These lines change with your strategy, design climate, humidity and shading, and are prefilled into the RFQ Builder together with the numbers above so suppliers quote the same scope.
- Cooling and ventilation package for pad-and-fan evaporative cooling sized to about 10,656,716 m³/h design airflow
- Climate computer or controller with the cooling control strategy, staging and alarm logic described
- Exhaust fan schedule (approximately 281 units at design duty) with airflow at stated static pressure, motor rating and efficiency
- Evaporative pad wall of about 1973 m² face area, pad depth, circulation pumps, sump, distribution and bleed-off control
- Pad water quality requirement, treatment and scaling / algae management scope
- Water demand for evaporative cooling of about 3,117 L/h at full duty, to be added to reservoir, refill and treatment sizing
- Electrical scope for approximately 429 kW installed cooling load: distribution boards, cabling, soft starters or drives and backup requirement
Pair this with the greenhouse heating load calculator for the winter side, water consumption calculator for evaporative demand, and the greenhouse TCO calculator to compare cooling packages over their service life. Background reading: greenhouse cooling systems and ventilation systems.
How should energy and financing volatility change my plan?
Size the system on engineering loads first, then test running costs and financing against price swings. Use one shared stress case across tools: energy +24% and fertilizer +31% (World Bank 2026 vs 2025 index outlook, 28 April 2026), with water unchanged unless your utility confirms a change. These are index movements, not local prices or forecasts for your site.
- Ask bidders to quote energy use (kWh, m³ gas) and nutrient quantities, not just equipment price, so you can reprice them locally.
- Lenders usually review cash flow under higher costs; prepare the stressed case before applying. Financing is never guaranteed.
- If costs are the main pressure, compare retrofitting existing houses with expanding or building new before committing capital.
Turning this estimate into a request? The greenhouse systems request builder lists what changes a quote — structure, cover, climate and installation scope — and opens a pre-filled request that our team reviews before any supplier is contacted.
Understanding the values
What each choice in this calculator means, and how the options differ in practice.
- Air exchanges per hour
- How often the house volume is replaced. Ventilation sizing is about moving enough air on the hottest still day, not the average day.
- Pad-and-fan vs natural ventilation
- Natural ventilation costs little to run but depends on wind and vent area; pad-and-fan gives control in hot, humid climates at an energy cost. The right choice follows the climate, not the budget alone.
Illustrative project summary
1 ha semi-closed high-tech house
An investor in a hot, water-scarce climate evaluates a semi-closed design with full climate control and CO2 enrichment.
1 ha · Semi-closed high-tech · Premium tomatoes
Indicative full greenhouse project CAPEX
USD 3.45M – USD 7.8M
Illustration only, not a real project or quotation. This is the structure, equipment and site-works budget for the example greenhouse, not the price of this calculator’s individual system, seeds or inputs, and not a result calculated from your entries. Excludes land, permits, packhouse, financing costs and working capital.
Based on the published commercial greenhouse cost benchmark. Written offers require a private project review; commercial projects start from USD 250K.
What can change the result?
This is a preliminary planning estimate based on the values you entered. The variables below usually move the outcome most, and should be confirmed with an agronomist, engineer and supplier offers before final design.
- Local climate: temperature, humidity, radiation and wind exposure
- Greenhouse type and technology level (tunnel, naturally ventilated, high-tech)
- Covering material and light transmission (film, polycarbonate, glass)
- Ventilation strategy and vent area
- Cooling and humidity control (pad-and-fan, fogging, screens, shading)
Questions this calculator answers
Typical buyer and investor searches this tool is built for, including the markets where we run the most commercial projects.
- greenhouse heating, cooling and energy cost per hectare for a commercial project
- greenhouse heating, cooling and energy cost for a 2-hectare project — India
- greenhouse heating, cooling and energy cost: indicative planning ranges — Kenya
- greenhouse heating, cooling and energy cost benchmarks for investors — Saudi Arabia
- greenhouse heating, cooling and energy cost under local market conditions — Mexico
- greenhouse heating, cooling and energy cost — what to specify in a supplier RFQ
Method and decision path
How to use this result in a commercial project
Use the result to test scope and compare scenarios. It is not a design, agronomic prescription, financing offer or supplier quotation.
1. Enter site evidence
Replace defaults with measured area, climate, water, energy, crop and commercial assumptions.
2. Test scenarios
Change one assumption at a time and record the effect on capacity, cost, demand or return.
3. Validate the duty
Ask the relevant agronomist, engineer or financial adviser to check the inputs and constraints.
4. Prepare a private RFQ
Carry the confirmed scope into a human-reviewed brief so written offers can be compared on the same basis.
Final specifications, performance, prices, supplier participation and timing depend on the site and written supplier responses; none is guaranteed by this calculator.
Plan the project around the numbers
A calculator output is a starting point. Pair it with the planning guides below to align timeline, irrigation, budget and risk before you launch an RFQ.
One private brief, specialist review, private supplier research and a like-for-like comparison.
Spec gaps, MOQ, delivery, Incoterms and evidence labels for seeds, greenhouses, irrigation, fertilizers and produce.
Month-by-month schedule from concept to first harvest across 9 stages.
Design principles for drip, pivot, fertigation and filtration on commercial projects.
How CAPEX, working capital and operating cost drive the project business case.
The ten most expensive planning and procurement pitfalls — and how to avoid them.
Procurement answers behind these numbers
A model output only holds if the scope, contract route and delivery terms match the assumptions. These reference answers cover the commercial decisions that move the figure.
- Turnkey EPC vs separate equipment packages
- What belongs in a greenhouse equipment specification
- Normal payment milestones in equipment contracts
- Which Incoterms to use for greenhouse and irrigation equipment
- How long a commercial greenhouse takes from order to handover
- What is normally the owner's scope on a greenhouse project
Move greenhouse cooling & ventilation calculator into a structured RFQ
Editorial · not a sales pitchCalculator outputs are indicative. When your numbers stabilise, a supplier-neutral RFQ turns those estimates into a consistent brief for comparing the written offers that participating suppliers provide.
The facts a complete, supplier-neutral request on this topic includes. Use it as a checklist before submitting.
- Covered area (m² or ha), bay/gutter layout preference and target gutter height
- Site location, altitude and design loads (wind, snow, seismic) if known
- Crop and production system (soil, substrate, hydroponic, nursery)
- Covering choice: polyethylene film, polycarbonate or glass — and expected lifetime
- Climate scope: ventilation, screens, heating, cooling/pad-fan, CO₂, controls
- Irrigation/fertigation scope and water source quality
- Target commissioning date, phasing and budget band (USD $250K+)
- Incoterms, destination port/site and who handles civil works and erection
- Site plan or coordinates with plot dimensions
- Soil/water analysis where available
- Any existing concept drawing, BOQ or previous supplier offer
Opens the RFQ Builder pre-scoped as a greenhouse project so suppliers quote structure, covering, climate and irrigation on the same basis. You stay in control — nothing is submitted until you review and confirm.
Free to submit · supplier-neutral · reviewed by a specialist before any supplier is contacted.
Running these numbers for a client project?
Agronomists, greenhouse and irrigation consultants use this calculator for feasibility, then hand the project to us for supplier shortlisting, RFQ preparation and quote comparison. You stay client-facing and we work through you.
Your client relationship stays with you — we work through you and never contact your client unless you ask.
Indicative only
- This tool is indicative only.
- It is not financial advice.
- It is not agronomic advice.
- It is not engineering design.
- Final numbers require supplier, agronomist, engineer and local regulatory review.
SeedMatch Group is an independent agricultural project sourcing and RFQ platform. We are not a farm, seed producer, fertilizer manufacturer, irrigation manufacturer, greenhouse builder, EPC contractor, lender or financial advisor. Supplier and project partner outreach is handled only after a commercial project brief is reviewed.
Supplier and manufacturer content is provided for research, transparency and discovery only. Buyers submit one project or RFQ to SeedMatch Group; our team validates and organises it, manages any suitable supplier or manufacturer outreach, and presents the responses through SeedMatch. There is no public directory of company identities, automatic matching, direct messaging or direct buyer-supplier contact.