After 22 years of loyal service, rose breeder Interplant Roses bade its gas-fired Ecoster drain water disinfector farewell to make way for the new Ecoster E, which will be officially unveiled at the GreenTech 2025 in Amsterdam. Manager Victor Piek welcomes its ease of use and very low energy consumption.
Interplant Roses has been a dedicated breeder of garden and greenhouse roses for over sixty years, having made a name for itself in the truss market-segment. All the crossing and initial screenings of seedlings take place at the main location in Harmelen, the Netherlands. Each plant is genetically unique and has the potential to become a standout variety in the future.
“Crossing and selection is a time-consuming, knowledge- and capital-intensive process,” says manager Victor Piek during a tour of the greenhouse. “Diseases and pests must not disrupt that process. So it goes without saying that we do everything we can to keep the plants healthy. That includes our water management.”
Horticultural companies in the Netherlands are not allowed to simply discharge their drain water and waste water. In order to be able to reuse it responsibly, disinfecting it is a good practice.
“Disinfection is a requirement for us,” Piek confirms. “Since the early 2000s, we had been using a gas-fired Ecoster installation for this. We replaced it at the beginning of this year. It was still working fine, but we knew that some components were being discontinued and would no longer be available. And although the disinfector hardly needed any maintenance and always did the job, we thought it was time for something new.”
The Management took the time to familiarize themselves with the latest disinfection technologies. UV disinfection was quickly ruled out, because that technology is not as good for drain water containing particles of organic matter. “We grow the plants in an organic substrate, so you can’t avoid some of it also getting into the drain water. Other disinfection techniques, such as reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration and ozone, also have technical or financial limitations compared to heating. So we ended up with Ecoster again.”
Coincidentally, Van Dijk Heating had just developed a new Ecoster E. This electrically heated disinfector uses new technology that cools the treated drain water even more efficiently.
On behalf of the manufacturer, Ton van Dijk explains how this works “In the old version, the treated drain water was cooled down from 95°C to 5°C above the supply temperature. The new version cools down from 96°C to 2°C above the supply temperature. So more heat is extracted from the disinfected water and returned to the disinfection process. As a result, almost 50% less power is needed for heating in the continuous process.”
That makes a big difference, according to the Management of Interplant Roses. It was just unfortunate that this upgraded version was not yet on the market. But a solution was found for that, too, as Van Dijk explains. “We had already created something great, but it had not yet become an actual application in a business. At that time, there was one prototype running at a pot plant nursery, with a disinfection capacity of 10 m3/hour. An installation with half that capacity would be sufficient for Interplant. It gave us the chance to test a second prototype of smaller capacity, and confirm that everything would work the way we expected."
"And it does," says Piek, with two months of user experience behind him. “Although I must honestly admit that we hardly pay any attention to it. Just like the old disinfector, it works without a hitch and certainly hasn’t needed any maintenance yet. We’re confident in good results at lower costs.”
“That aspect has been upgraded as well,” says Van Dijk. “The new Ecoster E will have an internet connection by default. In case of a malfunction, we or the installer can log in and see what’s going on. Remote sensing has proven its value as a tool to minimize downtime. It is a logical addition to functionality.”
As an installer, Bosman Van Zaal was involved in the process of selecting and installing the new Ecoster E at Interplant Roses. Project manager Geert Nell was pleasantly surprised that a newer, energy-efficient version had just been devised at the time of application.
“After a brief orientation by Victor Piek, it was clear that a new heater was the best option. When we approached Van Dijk Heating for this, it turned out that they wanted to install a prototype of the new electric variant,” he recalls. “Interplant Roses was game. To be on the safe side, we first pulled a heavier cable, because if there were any initial problems, the company would have to fall back on an earlier generation electric heater. In retrospect, that wasn’t necessary because the new Ecoster E runs fine. Not that I expected anything else; operational reliability is important to us, especially when it comes to water disinfection.”
Nell calls the upgraded Ecoster E a welcome innovation that fits the trends of increasing recirculation, responsible water management and energy savings. “That may sound obvious in Northwestern Europe, but in other areas they still throw away a lot of drain water. Yet there too, people are coming to realize that responsible reuse is better for the environment, better for nature and better for profits. Even companies in Africa are now switching to reusing disinfected drain water. The Ecoster E fits well into that scenario.”