| One of the most promising applications for active solar heating worldwide is the drying of agricultural products. The potential amount of energy that could be displaced using solar in this market is estimated to be between 657PJ and 1530PJ annually. The most promising market for solar drying in general are those crops that are mechanically dried at lower temperatures.
Crops that are currently sun-dried are well suited for solar drying, but the financial resources to implement a solar dying system are often lacking. The processes that are used to dry crops at temperatures greater than 50 degrees Celcius could benefit from solar drying as a supplemental system, but the drying process must be re-organized. Therefore the most promising market is displacing mechanical fuel-fired dryers for crops that are dried at temperatures less than 50ºC.
The identified potential for displacing conventional energy sources in this segment of the market is estimated to be between 300PJ and 900PJ. The use of solar energy for these markets hasn't been developed on large scale. Other than open air drying, wood and conventional fossil fuels are used most extensively at present. In many countries more expensive fuels like diesel and propane are replacing wood.
Ecofys has built up ample experience in this field through feasibility studies, demonstration projects and solar drying market potential assessments. In our publications section several reports can be found on this subject.
For IEA task 29, Ecofys developed a simple solar drying feasibility assessment spreadsheet tool. If you're interested in this tool, send an email to info@ecofys.nl.
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