Journal — Greenhouse Know-how & Industry Perspective

Combining authoritative international research with Hwa-Nan’s field experience to discuss greenhouse structure, controlled-environment agriculture, and smart cultivation.

How Greenhouse Costs Are Calculated in Taiwan — Subsidy Rates, Published Unit Prices and Full Contract Prices | 2026 Update

A subsidy baseline, a published figure and a full contract price are three different things. This piece explains what each can answer and how to read it, works through one 2015 dataset to show price-index conversion and its limits, and closes with a 17-point self-check list.

The Semi-Closed Greenhouse: Handing the Air to the Machines — Can the Tropics Use It?

The semi-closed greenhouse swaps “open the vents and wait for wind” for “let the equipment supply the air”: openings shrink drastically while air-handling units and slight overpressure actively control the climate — buying insect exclusion, retained CO₂ and a more uniform environment. Born of the Dutch energy-saving context, its exam in the tropics and subtropics becomes heat rejection, dehumidification and electricity.

A Century of Dutch Greenhouses — What Taiwan Should Really Learn Isn’t a Glass House

Mention modern greenhouses and many think first of the Netherlands. But what’s truly worth learning isn’t transplanting the Venlo glass house wholesale — it’s how the Dutch built a long-running, continuously improving protected-agriculture system around their own climate, crops, market, and industry. What Taiwan should learn is that problem-first way of thinking.

Open-Field vs. Protected Farming — In Taiwan, Count the Risk into the Ledger

Open-field growing saves the facility investment but stakes a whole season on the weather; protected cultivation costs more up front and buys stability of yield and price. Taiwan has little flat land, high land prices, and typhoons every year — this ledger can’t compare only yield and cost. The risk belongs in it too.

Before You Build a Greenhouse, Think It Through — About the Money

A greenhouse isn’t equipment you buy — it’s a business you open. Before breaking ground, answer three questions: grow what, sell to whom, and pay back in how many years. This piece lays the ROI numerator and denominator open, item by item — build when the numbers work; when they don’t add up, don’t build yet.

Washing the Covering and Desilting the Gutters — the Maintenance Most Worth Scheduling

Once a greenhouse is up, cleaning is the first thing people skip. But a dirty covering loses light transmission, and a silted gutter turns every storm into leaks and standing water. Washing and desilting are really one maintenance routine — and going up to wash the roof is the best chance to catch a leak early.

What Really Determines Greenhouse Film Life — And Why Film in Taiwan Rarely Lasts Its Rated Years

A “three-year” or “five-year” film is rated in accumulated solar radiation, not calendar years. Taiwan itself spans two climates — tropical and subtropical — so Pingtung and Yilan do not call for the same film. More importantly, most damage we are called out to is not age-related cracking but impact: stones thrown by a mower, sheet metal and branches carried by a typhoon. This article separates film life into two tracks: ageing, and impact.

Hard-Water Scale — A Greenhouse’s Chronic Disease, and Why Maintainability Is a Design Decision

Where the water is hard, scale grows layer by layer inside pipes, nozzles and cooling pads: nozzles block, the pad wall stops cooling, the pump works harder every season. Nothing breaks suddenly — it silts shut. Half the answer is routine upkeep; the other half is drawn long before construction, because a pipe that will scale should never be buried where nobody can open it.

Getting Water and Power onto Farmland in Taiwan — Clear “Permitted Use” First

Getting water and power to a greenhouse on farmland is never as simple as phoning the utility — it is tied to land-use legality, the purpose of the power, and permitted use of the facility. This piece lays out the five categories of agricultural power, the documents you need to connect water and electricity, and the all-important permitted-use consent.

Improving Thermal Performance in Hot and Humid Climates

In Taiwan the greenhouse thermal problem is the opposite of temperate countries — the point is not to keep heat in, but to keep the sun’s heat out and vent the heat that does get in. Get the direction wrong and the house becomes a steamer. This piece covers covering, shading, ventilation, and evaporative cooling for hot, humid climates.

Retrofitting an Old Greenhouse — What to Watch For

Taiwan has a large stock of greenhouses in service for ten or twenty years and more. As energy gets pricier, labour scarcer, and weather more extreme, growers are asking: retrofit the old house, or tear it down and rebuild? The answer turns on three things — structure, energy, and operation — most of which are only clear from the engineering side.

Twelve Real Pain Points of Greenhouses in Taiwan — and What Design Should Solve First

Heat, humidity, typhoons, pests, cost, and regulation all pull against each other — a greenhouse in Taiwan is never a single-equipment problem.

Film, Netting, or Glass — Choosing the Right Greenhouse Covering

The covering defines a greenhouse’s light, temperature, and budget. Poly film is affordable and fast to install, netting ventilates and excludes insects, glass transmits the most light and lasts the longest — there is no absolute best, only what fits your crop and business.

Why Early Planning and Design Is the Best Investment in a Greenhouse

Workflows that don’t flow, utilities that fall short, no room left to expand — a greenhouse’s most expensive waste is usually locked in before ground breaks, and is usually avoidable before ground breaks.

Why Good Greenhouses Use So Much Aluminium — and Why ESG Favours It

Corrosion-free, precision-formable, recyclable almost indefinitely — and one-third the weight of steel. Hwa-Nan cuts its own dies to develop profiles for Taiwan’s climate, making construction faster and safer, and giving greenhouses real numbers to show in the ESG era.