Title: Thermal model development and performance analysis of a solar photovoltaic supported greenhouse dryer

Authors: Ramen Kanti De; A. Ganguly

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, PO-B. Garden, Howrah-711103, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, PO-B. Garden, Howrah-711103, India

Abstract: In this paper, a novel scheme of a standalone grid independent solar greenhouse dryer has been proposed. A thermal model for forced convection solar greenhouse drying of Peas has been developed. The model takes hourly values of climate data for the chosen location along with certain other data related to the product and the greenhouse as input and predicts the hourly values of product temperature, greenhouse air temperature, convective heat transfer coefficient and the amount of moisture evaporated from the product. The performance of the dryer has been analysed for a representative day in the month of December for the climatic condition of Kolkata, India (22.32°N, 88.20°E). To make the system grid independent, a photovoltaic-based power system with battery backup has been designed. The performance of the integrated power system has been analysed for all the seasons of a climatic cycle. Finally, an economic analysis has been included to calculate the payback period of the proposed dryer.

Keywords: forced convection; convective heat transfer coefficient; greenhouse drying; photovoltaics; economic analysis; payback period; thermal modelling; performance evaluation; solar energy; solar power; product temperature; air temperature; moisture evaporation; solar drying; India; battery backup.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRET.2016.080116

International Journal of Renewable Energy Technology, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.361 - 382

Received: 23 Jun 2015
Accepted: 20 Jul 2016

Published online: 02 Nov 2016 *

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