Techno- Economic evaluation of milk chilling unit retrofitted with hybrid renewable energy system in coastal province

Renewable energy based hybrid energy cooling system is an economic and convenient option for rural milk preservation in remote coastal province in southern part of India. In this work, a model is presented for the techno-economic evaluation of hybrid renewable energy operated chilling system to fulfil the preservation requirements of isolated coastal sites where the bio resources and solar energy are plenty available. A milk chilling plant operated by vapour absorption cooling system which obtains thermal energy from various combinations of existing renewable energy sources has been studied and to predict the effect of different energy proportions of existing renewable energy resources on the overall system performance and economical parameters. From the analysis, it can be concluded that the Gobar gas/Biomass/Biogas/Solar (0.5:0.25:0.125:0.125) has been recommended for the suitable combination. The analysis reveals that the proposed hybrid renewable energy based chilling system can show the overall system performance as 0.18-0.19 with lowest Payback period (4 years 6 months to 5 years 3 months), life cycle cost (INR 16.8-19.5 million) and positive net present value. The sensitivity analysis show that the energy conversion efficiency and interest rate significantly influences the overall COP and capital cost, running cost and payback period.