Energy Efficiency and Performance Evaluation of Hybrid Photovoltaic System for Fan-Pad of Greenhouses
Abstract
This research is oriented towards improving energy efficiency in the cooling of greenhouses equipped with pad fan system. Once the least amount of energy was achieved, it was installed and evaluated the performance of a hybrid photovoltaic system inexpensive. Two of the most important branches of research related to agricultural greenhouses were unified to achieve the objective, namely, 1) the mathematical modeling of greenhouse climate and 2) experiments of solar energy for greenhouses. The results of the mathematical model allowed selecting the adequate ventilation rate and avoiding unnecessary consumption of electrical energy in the exhaust fans. After determining the optimal ventilation rate, it was calculated the energy required by fans depending on the hours of operation. A hybrid photovoltaic system with backup was evaluated with a solar resource of 5.5 kWh per day (Central region of Mexico). The main objective of the hybrid system is not to provide all the energy required for extraction fans, but reduce the power consumption from the local grid. The reduction of energy consumption was 32% and the total cost of hybrid system was USD $3,400.00.
Keywords
Agricultural greenhouse, Photovoltaics, Mathematical modeling, Saved energy