Joint ventures

Operations

The d'VineRipe® purpose-built glasshouse is a sustainable development which seeks to minimise its environmental footprint. It is the largest glasshouse in Australia to use pad and fan climate control technology.

Key features include a co-generation plant which runs on natural gas to create electricity, heat and carbon dioxide (CO2). Once generated, heat and CO2 is returned to the glasshouse. Excess is sold to the national grid.

Most of the glasshouse's water is sourced from Adelaide's waste water which is diverted to the Bolivar Water Reuse Project, near Virginia, north of Adelaide, and treated before being piped to d'VineRipe's® specially designed water treatment plant. There, a reverse osmosis plant further filters the water, sending 85 per cent quality water to the crop and 15 per cent waste water to an evaporative pond. Installation of its own treatment plant represents a saving to the community of an estimated 520 megalitres a year - water which would have been supplied by Adelaide's potable supply.

Further augmenting the glasshouse's water supply is a closed watering system which collects rainwater from the facility's vast roof, then netting and treating the water before reusing it on the tomato crop. An evaporative cooling system maintains optimum an temperature - averaging 21ºC over a 24-hour period - inside the glasshouse irrespective of outside temperatures.

Email d'VineRipe® - for information about the facility.