Simulating the energy consumption of greenhouses provides significant advantages for planningtheir construction or estimating the effectiveness of reconstruction measures. A substantialnumber of models used today derive from a simple model by Kanthak in 1970. To this dayneither a theoretical nor a practical comparison of these developments has been conducted.Therefore, this study aims to qualitatively and quantitatively compare four representativemodels that are based on Kanthak. The best performing model is implemented into a softwareprogram. To quantitatively compare models, a test stand was developed. The resultingmeasurement box was then used to parameterize environmental variables to compare andevaluate the models. The results from the test stand showed that models, which accountedfor cloudiness and windspeed, outperformed other models. A model developed by Tantauand Akyazi in 2014 delivered the most accurate results. However, these model predictionaccuracies could not be reproduced under applied greenhouse conditions in the field. Here,the model developed by Rath in 1992 showed best accuracy. This model was therefore usedas the core algorithm in the new iteration of the software system HORTEX© To increaseprediction accuracy and to enable future software development, the majority of algorithms andfunctions in the original HORTEX©were restructured and replaced. The resulting software,distributed by the Eugen Ulmer KG publisher as Hortex 5.0©, contributes to improving theenergy consumption of greenhouses.