Effects of a Combined Geothermal and Solar Heating System as a Renewable Energy Source in a Pig House and Estimation of Energy Consumption Using Artificial Intelligence-Based Prediction Model

SIMPLE SUMMARY: A combined geothermal heat pump and solar system (GHPS) was installed at a pig house to check the effects on electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emission (GHE), internal farm temperature, the concentration of noxious gases and growth performance. The GHPS heating system reduced energy consumption and CO(2) concentrations. Furthermore, the GHPS system effectively maintained the optimum temperature for pig growth inside the pigsty. Additionally, the artificial intelligence (AI)-based model ‘gene expression programming (GEP)’ was used to predict electricity consumption. ABSTRACT: This experiment evaluated the performance of a combined geothermal heat pump and solar system (GHPS). A GHPS heating system was installed at a pig house and a comparative study was carried out between the environmentally friendly renewable energy source (GHPS) and the traditional heating method using fossil fuels. The impact of both heating systems on production performance, housing environment, noxious gas emission, and energy efficiency were evaluated along with the GHPS system performance parameters such as the coefficient of performance (COP), inlet and outlet water temperature and efficiency of solar collector. The average temperature inside the pig house was significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the GHPS heating system. Similarly, the outflow temperature was increased significantly (p < 0.05) than the inflow temperature. The results of COP and efficiency of the solar system also indicated that the GHPS is an efficient heating system. The electricity consumption and carbon dioxide gas concentration were also reduced (p < 0.05) in the GHPS system. This study also predicts electricity consumption using an artificial intelligence (AI)-based model. The results showed that the proposed model justifies all the acceptance criteria in terms of the correlation coefficient, root mean square value and mean absolute error. The results of our experiment show that the GHPS system can be installed at a pig house for sustainable swine production as a renewable energy source.