Final Report for Application of Solar Energy to Industrial Drying of Soybeans. Phase III. Performance Evaluation

摘要

A 15-month performance evaluation was conducted on a solar system designed and constructed to augment the industrial drying of soybeans at the Gold Kist, Inc., extraction plant in Decatur, Alabama. The plant employs three oil-fired, continuous-flow dryers of 3000 Btu/hr each. The solar system consists of 672 Solaron air collectors that temper the airflow into the existing dryers. The solar system was operated for 1752 hr on 290 days during the 15-month period without a single failure sufficient to cause shutdown. No interference with normal plant operations was experienced. Maintenance of the solar system, consisting of service to the air handling unit, cleaning of collector glazing, and minor duct repair, totaled $1564. System utilization for the 15-month period was only 46.3%. This was primarily due to daytime routine maintenance performed on the conventional drying and processing equipment. The solar fraction was not large enough to justify maintenance shift changes. The 1215 m exp 2 (13,104 ft exp 2 ) of collection area supplied 1.04 x 10 exp 12 J (986.54 x 10 exp 6 Btu). At a more realistic utilization of 95%, the system would have delivered 2.13 x 10 exp 12 J (2024 x 10 exp 6 Btu), representing 13,600 gal of No. 5 fuel oil. An average collector efficiency of 26.2% was experienced. (ERA citation 08:004707)