4FFland

Abstract

This paper presents a research which seeks ways to transform the Brettenzone, an existing recreational area in Amsterdam, into an energyscape: a landscape which produces renewable energy. Renewable energy production will increasingly start to compete with other forms of land use such as recreation, nature and agriculture. Its careful integration therefore becomes detrimental. This paper discusses renewable energy systems and what determines their sustainability. It offers a set of analysis methods which can be used when designing for renewable energy production. These methods include energy potential and system mapping. This paper also presents an analysis of Amsterdam’s energy system and it’s potentials for renewable energy production using the before mentioned methods. This analyses describes the design casus and seeks to identify possibilities for an intervention. It gives a set of possibilities producing renewable energy in the Brettenzone which include: recycling nutrients from industrial waste streams to agriculturally produce food and biogas, producing electrical power using PV cells, harvesting heat for the district network using solar collectors and aquifers, as well as harvesting cold for a future district network (Teleport) using deep water source cooling (Sloterplas), absorption cooling devices, the Binnen-IJ and aquifers. The most promising proposal, an agricultural enterprise producing food and biogas, is analysed further. Such an enterprise would produce food, feed and fuel whilst maintaining a theoretically closed cycle of fertilising nutrients. This paper present research into the requirements of such a food, feed, fuel and fertiliser farm entitled, the 4F farm. The paper presents the aspects which determine the sustainability of the 4F farm with an emphasis on the bioenergy aspect. It explores possible sources of plant biomass by comparing their biogas yield rates as well as their climatic requirements in comparison to the conditions in Amsterdam. A similar analysis is made for manure as a source of biomass. The biogas production process is also discussed as well as the required systems and equipment. From this paper it can be concluded that the described food and biogas farm should seek to optimize the yield of food, feed, fuel and fertilizer in that respective order of importance. Also it offers the required data and recommendations for designing the 4F farm. The paper notes however that the 4F’s energy yields per acre are not sufficient to fulfi ll the ambition of acting as an energyscape. For this goal to be reached the 4F farm should also integrate other energy harvesting techniques such as PV cells or solar collectors. The 4F farm can be suffi cient however to sustain a small autarkic neighbourhood.