Preliminary Energy Sector Assessments of Jamaica. Volume III: Renewable Energy. Part II: Solar Energy - Agricultural

摘要

The study is concerned with the use of solar heat for drying agricultural products (crops, timber, and fish). The study finds that Jamaica has an ideal climate for solar agricultural product drying with the following methods offering the greatest promise; sun drying using open barbeques; drying in transparent buildings (with or without attached collectors) for small operations; new drying systems using solar air heaters with forced air drying; preheating air for existing commercial fossil-fueled dryers; and fish drying via chemical dehydration with solar regeneration of the chemical. The primary needs are to develop and construct environmentally suitable solar dryers and to train engineers in solar system design and installation.