Improving the sustainability and effectiveness of photovoltaic evaporative cooling greenhouse in the Sahel

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change has caused worldwide extreme weather events including droughts, floods and heatwaves. It disproportionately affects developing countries through food insecurity. Greenhouse is important and relevant to the food-energy-water security in many regions. This study investigates the thermal behavior of photovoltaic evaporative cooling greenhouse made with eco-friendly coolers. The cooling potential of local plant materials was assessed under ambient conditions. Experimental thermal data obtained from optimized evaporative cooling system equipped with Hyphaene thebaica fibers (HF-pad) and conventional Celdek pad (C-pad), were used in heat and mass transfer equations to derive the greenhouse cooling performances. Computational fluid dynamics analysis software was used to investigate the refrigerant fluid distribution in the greenhouse. Cooler using HF-pad allows to keep the microclimate below 25 °C, with maximum moisture rate up to 80%, under harsh ambient conditions (temperature: 30–45 °C, humidity: 10–15%). HF-pad had the highest cooling coefficient of performance (COP = 9 against 6 for C-pad), the best cost to efficiency ratio (CER = 5; 4 times less than C-pad) and the lowest outlet temperature (20.0 °C). Due to higher outlet air velocity (1.116 m/s against 0.825 m/s for HF-pad), C-pad cooler spread cool air (20.5 °C) up to 1.25 m farther than its counterpart, creating higher pressure in the atmosphere (1.42 Pa against 0.71 Pa), with 2 times turbulent kinetic energy (0.014 J/kg). HF-pad presented cooling performances that compete with conventional pads. Moreover, optimization of HF-pad frame engineering and the technology scaling up to industrial level can allow better thermal and economic performances.