Utilization of Solar Energy in Agricultural Machinery Engineering: A Review

Abstract

Background: Various solar energy collecting systems have been developed and analyzed for agricultural applications. They include solar thermal and electric devices such as solar crop dryers, solar water pumps, solar greenhouse heating, ventilation for livestock, solar aeration pumps, solar electricity, and many more. Purpose: This review provides the current status of research and development in the field as well as the solar energy systems that are currently in use in the agriculture sector across the globe. Review: Solar energy is the largest and cheapest energy resource on earth; one hour of solar radiation exceeds the complete global energy consumption in one year. The potential annual total solar radiation in South Korea is 3.58-5.4 kWh/m 2 /day. The available solar energy is sufficient for agricultural applications across the entire country. Conclusion: The scope of solar energy utilization in agricultural machinery engineering in South Korea and in other countries is promising.

Solar process heat in industrial systems – A global review

“…Silva et al worked on the solar process heat driven vegetable preservation industry by thermal treatment and canning in Spain [85]. Hussain et al reviewed solar process heating systems used in agricultural industries [34].…”

IoT Based Smart Solar Flower Water Pump System

“…The installed cost depends on distance of the installed smart flower from the home, whether a concrete slab foundation needs to be poured, and whether the installation requires additional electrical work. By comparison, the median price for a standard ground-mounted solar energy system without tracking capabilities on the Energy Sage Solar Marketplace was just $3.43/Watt, or $13,720 for a 4 kW system [8,9].…”

A Differentiable Model for Optimizing Hybridization of Industrial Process Heat Systems with Concentrating Solar Thermal Power

“…The fuel cost was set at the commercial rate [45] in Table A2 and we let ξ = 0. Table 1 contains the location information and corresponding optimal solar-IPH hybridization strategies (i.e., the optimal solutions of Equation (19)) for both the linear fixed-pricing model in Equation (15) and the nonconvex discount-pricing model in Equation (14). For each location, the fixed-pricing model determines an optimal design that has a lower TES capacity and less PTC aperture area (and therefore lower annual solar fraction) than the global optimal solution.…”

“…Active interest in the topic in recent years has been motivated largely by the concern over unsustainable energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and overall environmental impact of commercial and industrial sectors [10]. Attention to the feasibility of solar applications to specific industries has been made, such as: food and beverage [11], mining [12,13], agriculture [14,15], textiles [11,[16][17][18][19], pulp and paper [20,21], chemicals [22,23], and building construction materials [4], among others. Recent reviews [4,6,7,9] resolve the individual industries by their similar unit operations (e.g., drying, hot water, sterilization, etc.).…”