Long-Term Performance of Ice Thermal Cold Storage With Photovoltaic Powered DC Refrigeration System for Milk Cooling Using Computational Model
Abstract
Pastoral communities in Africa depend on animal husbandry and milk production for their subsistence. Even though large quantities of milk are produced by pastoralists and small-scale dairy farms, the milk is either left to be spoilt or excessively consumed due to the absence of power for refrigeration. To address the problem, standalone PV-powered milk refrigeration system with ice thermal storage is proposed. The ice thermal storage replaces the battery for nighttime cooling. Sizing cold thermal storage for milking cooling using charging and discharging techniques with computational models is rarely investigated. Hence, this work focuses on the development of a transient computational model for performance analysis and prediction of the annual performance of a milk cooling system with DC refrigeration integrated with ice thermal storage powered by PV system. The simulations conducted using the MATLAB computational model were used to determine the thickness and mass of ice thermal storage to cool 50 liters of milk between 2-4 oC for more than a day. A minimum of 0.061m ice thickness and 31kg mass of ice is required.
Keywords
Milk cooling, Pv cold thermal storage, Charging and discharging