A woman who became a farmer in recent years has now taken up the challenge of growing strawberries in a greenhouse using thermal energy from groundwater, in collaboration with a local startup in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture.
With fuel costs rising, cultivation using groundwater thermal energy incurs lower maintenance costs than the conventional heavy-oil-based approach. Yasuda Farm owner Sayuri Yasuda, 45, hopes that, in addition to this, her use of renewable energy also contributes to decarbonization. Yasuda has been growing strawberries in Koriyama since autumn 2024, when she took up farming after working for about 15 years at a telecommunications construction company run by her husband.
In autumn last year, when Yasuda added a fourth greenhouse to her three existing ones, expanding her total cultivated area from 850 square meters to 950 square meters, she also introduced a heat pump system that uses heat from water extracted from the ground.
The system works on the same basic principle as an air conditioner: pressure on a refrigerant is increased to raise the temperature and decreased to lower it. The system is said to provide efficient heating and cooling by taking advantage of the temperature differential between the groundwater, which stays at 15 C to 16 C throughout the year, and the outside air.
Read more at The Japan News
