Determination of Community Energy and Food Requirements

The modeling approaches for Integrated Energy Farms or settlements should include the identification and determination of different parameters for site conditions. Various data should be identified in detail for the planning, modeling and implementation of farms and settlements, such as determination of energy requirements, analysis of energy potential, data collection and processing for energy utilization, wind energy and biomass. Agriculture is itself an energy conversion process, namely the conversion of solar energy through photosynthesis to food energy for humans and feed for animals. Modern agriculture requires an energy input at all stages of agricultural production such as direct use of energy in farm machinery, water management, irrigation, cultivation and harvesting. Above all, as in the developing countries where a food deficit exists, the effort to utilize vegetable oil as fuel can be problematic. Here the principle “food over fuel” should be retained.