Food & Beverages

Food and beverages industry involves many processes where a wide range of temperatures for heating is required. Other requirements include drying and sludge disposal. Conventional fuel is used for generating high temperature and drying purposes. Sludge from these industries is typically dried in the open and then disposed of through trucks. The use of conventional fuel and disposal of sludge with high moisture content leads to high operating costs. Apart from that, the fossil energy consumption adds up to significant GHG emissions.

Solar Thermal-based collectors and concentrators can be used to produce the required heat in the form of water, thermic fluid, steam for all the above processes. Solar-based Green-House can be used for sludge drying.

By using Oorja Solar thermal collectors

1. The system can be integrated into processes along with existing conventional heater or boiler.

2. Oorja CPC can provide temperature up to 95-degree Celsius hot water. For higher temperature requirements, other products like PTC 18, PTC 72 can be used.

3. 60-80 % reduction in fossil energy consumption, offsetting tonnes of GHGs.

4. Reduction in operating costs of the processes.

5. Less than 3 years payback and after that, the system works for free.

6. The installations can be done on the ground, RCC roofs and industrial sheds.

7. The heat can be stored in heat storage tanks and can be used in non-solar hours as well.

Figure 1 Oorja Compound parabolic Collector

By using solar-based Green House,

1. The moisture content in sludge can be reduced to up to 5%.

2. Significant reduction in transportation costs is achieved due to reduced moisture.

Figure 2 Solar Green House

Solar drying is done using Oorja compound parabolic collector (CPC). It is a solar concentrator technology which can utilise both diffused and direct radiation for producing temperatures of up to 120 °C from direct air heating. It consists of a CPC with a parabolic reflector on the bottom. The air is directly passed on to the tubes and heated. For higher temperature drying, the process can be supplemented by Oorja XCPC which is a high-temperature thermic fluid heater. The heat from the thermic fluid can later be transferred to air through a heat exchanger.

Figure 3 Oorja Solar Air Dryer