Thermal performance evaluation of a greenhouse solar dryer equipped with photovoltaic cells and phase change material

The purpose of the present study is to investigate the performance evaluation of a greenhouse solar dryer equipped with photovoltaic cells and phase change material. The governing equations of problem is obtaind by writing the energy balance for the various component of the system including photovoltaic module, greenhouse chamber air, crop, absorber plate and phase change material. An empirical model is used to calculate the electrical power of photovoltaic module. In order to calculate the thermal and electrical parameters of the system including photovoltaic cells temperature, the temperature of greenhouse chamber air, crop temperature, phase change material temperature, absorber plate temperature and electrical power, the governing equations on the system performance is solved by numerical methods. Also, a relation for the overall energy efficiency of the system is introduced. The modeling results of the present study is in good agreement with the experimental data of the previous literature. The results obtained for the sample day of Zahedan show that the phase change material by storing the system loss heat during the day and releasing it at night enables the crop drying process to continue well into the night, so that the overall evaporation rate increases by about 38.76%. The maximum energy efficiency of the system is about 15%.