Techno-economic Evaluation of Solar PV integrated Refrigeration System for a Cold Storage /

Abstract

Solar energy is one of the most promising renewables owing to its wide availability, cost effectiveness and ease of hybridization with conventional energy systems. This thesis details the solar PV integrated refrigeration system for a cold storage facility. This storage facility based on the conventional vapor compression refrigeration system for banana fruit, is located in the city of Mardan (34.2° N, 72.02° E)- Pakistan. During the first phase, the conventional system is analyzed. Mathematical modelling has shown that the condenser is oversized and the designed area is 25% less than the installed area. Subsequently, the evaporator was undersized and its area increases from 22.4m2 to 24.61m2. The actual consumption of AC compressor was evaluated at no load and full load condition and found to be 25kW, while the installed compressor is 37kW which revealed that the compressor is oversized. In the second phase, the optimized system with reduced consumption was integrated to the solar PV field. The solar field sizing, and performance optimization of the PV hybrid refrigeration system was accomplished in PV*SOL® simulation tool. The simulation results proved that with 170m2 solar field, an optimized PV hybrid refrigeration system is able to achieve 58.1% solar fraction at a performance ratio of 59.2%, under given climatic conditions. Following the net metering mechanism (since the system is able to produce surplus electric power during off season period, which is sold to grid), the system shows high economic feasibility with the payback period of 5.2 years.