Study on Energy System of a Plant Factory for Savoy Processing using Spot Cooling of Spinach

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  • ホウレンソウの部分冷却を用いた寒締め加工用植物工場のエネルギーシステムの検討

Abstract

<p>Power balance and heat balance of a proposed plant factory were investigated for the purpose of energy saving of cold regions plant factory using a solid oxide fuel cell cogeneration and photovoltaics. The cultivated plants are spinach which is a typical agricultural product in the Okhotsk region of Hokkaido. Spinach increases sugar content when exposed to a low temperature (less than 7 ℃) environment. The maximum temperature from December to March of Kitami is less than 7 ℃. Therefore, in this period, a ventilation fan is used to air cooling the plant factory. On the other hand, the plant factory is cooled by absorption refrigerator from April to November. In addition, spinach can achieve the same effect (increase in sugar content) even when only the root portion is cooled. Therefore, in this paper, we clarified the energy consumption (the amount of cold heat supply) of the system for cooling the whole plant factory and the system for spot cooling a part of the plant factory (root of spinach). As a result, the spot cooling system can reduce the amount of cold heat supply by about 15.5% as compared to the system for cooling the whole plant factory. Furthermore, when the spot cooling system is used for processing by exposure to coldness of spinach, the minimum payback period was about 7.13 years, and the profit rate was about 4.59. Therefore, commercial use can be expected.</p>

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