The Year-Round Solar Greenhouse: How to Design and Build a Net-Zero Energy Greenhouse

Build your own passive solar greenhouse for year-round food production in any climate

Fresh, local nutrient-dense fruits vegetables are hard to find in winter in cold climates. Growing warm-weather crops like tomatoes, bananas, avocados, and other perennials is nearly impossible using conventional structures. The solution for millions of backyard and small-scale commercial growers is self-heating solar greenhouses.

The Year-round Solar Greenhouse is the one-stop guide to designing and building greenhouses that harness and store energy from the sun to create naturally heated, lush growing environments even in the depths of winter, covering principles of solar greenhouse design and siting, glazing material properties and selection, controlling heat loss, ventilation, and construction methods. Additionally, an in-depth section covers sustainable ways of heating the greenhouse without fossil fuels, including using thermal mass and storing heat underground with a ground to air heat exchanger.

Variations include attached solar greenhouses, earth sheltered greenhouses, plus integrating hydroponics and aquaponics. More than a dozen case studies from across North America provide inspiration and demonstrate specific challenges and solutions for growing year-round in any climate.

Grow your own food, anytime, anywhere using the power of the sun

Lindsey Schiller studied conventional greenhouse design and management at the University of Arizona’s Controlled Environmental Agriculture Center before delving deeply into solar greenhouse design. With co-author Marc Plinke, she founded Ceres Greenhouse Solutions to research, design and build energy-efficient year-round greenhouses. Lindsey has designed, toured and helped build hundreds of energy-efficient greenhouses spanning small residential structures to acre-size commercial facilities.

Marc Plinke , an inventor-innovator with a PhD in engineering, started his career as a chemical and process engineer working for Gore Technologies. He later retrofitted his family’s 1950’s Boulder, CO ranch home into a net-zero-energy home, spurring a second career in green building design. Marc has spent the past decade applying his expertise in green building and engineering mindset to building better greenhouses, with the intention of enabling people to grow their own food sustainably, year-round.