Impact of Building and Refrigeration System’s Parameters on Energy Consumption in the Potato Cold Storage

Ramkishore Singh,I J Lazarus,S P Singh

doi:10.5539/eer.v4n3p126

Ramkishore Singh, I J Lazarus + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5539/eer.v4n3p126

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Abstract

Cold storage is a key element for long term preservation and distribution of perishable items. A large quantity of perishable items is gone wastage every year due to inadequate storage facility in the countries like India. Their energy extensive refrigeration process makes them accountable for substantial share of total energy consumption in the country. Moreover, energy inefficiency in operation and building designs in the existing cold storages inhibits expansion of desirable storage facility. This study aims to explore the building and refrigeration system’s parameters that may influence the overall energy consumption in the storage. A survey was conducted in ten Indian potato cold storages and detail data of their energy consumption, building construction and refrigeration systems was collected. The collected data was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Trend analysis technique was also used to establish relationship between specific energy consumption and identified parameters. Results show that the utilization factor has major impact on the energy consumption in the storages and the existing cold storages are not utilizing their storage capacities fully. Comparatively higher energy consumption was observed in the cold storages that have low utilization factors. Building aspect ratios and effective U-value of the building envelop were also identified one of the crucial parameters that can play a major role to improve the energy performance of the cold storages. As expected, a negligible variation in the specific energy consumption of the storages with the specific installed refrigeration systems and AHUs was observed.

Highlights

IntroductionGlobal warming and food security are major concerns for the whole world and need to be given immediate attention
Energy crises, global warming and food security are major concerns for the whole world and need to be given immediate attention
The variation in specific energy consumption could be influenced by the building and refrigeration systems’ parameters (e.g. capacity utilization factor (CUF), overall heat transfer coefficient (Ueff), aspect ratios of buildings, capacities of refrigeration units and air handling units)

Summary

Introduction

Global warming and food security are major concerns for the whole world and need to be given immediate attention. Cold storages are essential for food security as well as for quality of perishable items, operation of the storages is an energy extensive process and consumes substantial amount of the total energy consumption in the countries like India. As of 2012, India had approximately 6,300 cold storages, with a total storage capacity of 30.11 million metric tons. It was estimated that the cold storage capacity in India needs to doubled, to a total of 61.13 million metric tons, to accommodate the yearly production of the perishable food items in the country (Sridar, 2013). The energy performance of the existing cold storage facility needs to be assessed and discussed properly because the poor performance of the storage facilities increase the energy consumption and responsible for low quality of refrigerated product (Gottschalk, K., Nagy, L., 2003; Nourian, F., Ramaswamy, H.S., 2003). Chourasia and Goswami (Chourasia & Goswami, 2009)

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