Performance analysis of photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) mixed mode greenhouse solar dryer

• Present system is designed for rural area in developing country where grid connectivity is not available everywhere.
• Thermal modeling has been done with experimental validation.
• Characteristic curve have been made for system and drying.
• Overall thermal energy and overall exergy have been calculated with experimental validation.

A hybrid photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) greenhouse solar dryer under mixed mode has been proposed and different parameters have been evaluated for climatic condition of Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi (28_350N, 77_120E, 216 m above MSL), India. Further thermal modelling has been developed for the PVT greenhouse dryer by considering different parameter namely crop, greenhouse and solar cell temperatures, etc. Numerical computations have been done with the help of program made on MATLAB 2013a and the results are validated with experimental values. Characteristic curves have been developed for drying and system efficiency with experimental validation. Further, an overall thermal energy and exergy have been calculated. Theoretical and experimental values of overall thermal energy found to be 1.92 kW h and 2.03 kW h respectively. It can be seen that there is good agreement between theoretical and experimental value with r = 0.98 and e = 10.76. Further validation has also been done for energy and exergy of PVT dryer.