Evaluating Indoor-Environment Predictions in a Naturally Ventilated Greenhouse Using BES Simulation: Effects of Ventilation and Crop Modeling

Greenhouse environmental control supports stable cultivation under increasing climate variability and energy costs, motivating quantitative assessment of thermal conditions and energy use.Many simulation studies omit natural ventilation and crop energy exchange.Using a building energy simulation (BES), This study coupled Stanghellini's evapotranspiration model with a wind-pressure-based natural-ventilation scheme to simulate a naturally ventilated leafy-vegetable greenhouse and evaluated predictions of air temperature and relative humidity against observations.Without ventilation and crop energy: temperature MAE 9.86°C, MSE 254.32°C 2 , MAPE 14.91%; humidity MAE 34.24pp, MSE 1,403.57%RH 2 , MAPE 44.41%.With crop energy only: temperature MAE 16.23°C, MSE 400.82°C 2 , MAPE 22.49%; humidity MAE 51.95pp, MSE 2,734.64%RH 2 , MAPE 63.56%.With ventilation only: temperature MAE 1.58°C, MSE 3.79°C 2 , MAPE 2.02%; humidity MAE 13.24pp, MSE 239.38%RH 2 , MAPE 16.92%.With both: temperature MAE 1.38°C, MSE 3.53°C 2 , MAPE 1.83%; humidity MAE 10.13pp, MSE 154.18%RH 2 , MAPE 13.08%.The results show that including both airflow and crop energy exchange is necessary to obtain the lowest prediction errors in BES-based energy analysis and environmental control for naturally ventilated greenhouses.