Performance characterisation of a small milk cooling system with ice storage for PV applications

•Conventional DC refrigerators are used for on-farm milk cooling.•The system uses ice storage to improve milk cooling speed and energy performance.•The developed model calculates temperature transients and energy consumption.•The amount of milk to cool down and ambient temperature are inputs of the model.•The results can be used to size PV panels and batteries at different locations.

The presented work proposes a calculation method to estimate the transient performance of a small on-farm milk cooling system for PV applications. The system employs 3 kg ice for fast cooling of 17 L milk in conventional 20-L-milk-cans. Two units of a commercial DC refrigerator operate at −10 °C and at 4 °C for ice production and milk preservation respectively. The development of milk temperature and energy consumption during a cooling event was studied experimentally at different ambient temperatures of 20 °C, 30 °C and 40 °C. A computational model was developed and validated where thermal resistances and COP were adjusted with experimental data. The results between 20 °C and 40 °C ambient temperature show a COP reduction of around 30% and a total daily energy consumption increase of around 100%. The specific total energy consumption of the system per litre milk was between 30 Wh/L and 58 Wh/L for the studied ambient temperature range. The suggested model can be used for the optimisation of photovoltaic stand-alone systems at specific locations.