Investigation of the Performance of a Solar Driven Refrigerator for Post-Harvest Crops in Hot Arid Remote Areas

摘要

There are many agriculture crops that are being cultivated in Egypt reclaimed deserts at hot arid remote areas with lack or no electrical grid connection. Consequently, to deliver such crops at high product quality, after harvest to the consumers, the transport storage environment need to be at appropriate temperature and humidity levels to maintain highest product quality to the end user. Therefore for multiple crops carriage, a transportable multi-store solar driven refrigeration system is suggested to be used. In this study, design, modeling and performance investigation of a 15 ft~3 transportable solar driven DC refrigeration system to be utilized for postharvest handling of crops has been carried out at Alexandria, Egypt. There are two compartments with different working temperatures of 5 and 0°C to store different types of fruits and vegetables. The determined cooling loads for the two cold storages are 5.44 and 6.21 kW, respectively. The required PV panel’s area for 5 and 0°C compartment are 23.6 m~2 and 32 m~2 Monocrystalline type. In addition, the refrigerator EER values are 9.04 and 7.41 for the 5°C and 0°C compartments, respectively.