Chapter I

Introduction
1.1 General
Energy is the key input for socio-economic development of any Nation. The
fast Industrialization and rapid urbanization besides mechanized farming have
generated a high demand of energy in all forms i.e. thermal, mechanical and electrical.
To meet this ever increasing demand, fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas
have been overexploited in an unsustainable manner. The over exploitations of fossil
fuels have been posing serious environmental problems such as global warming and
climate change. While we have shortage of energy and more dependent on imports in
case of petroleum, we are fortunate enough to be blessed with plenty of natural
sources of energy such as solar, wind, biomass and hydro. These sources are
environmentally benign and non-depleting in nature as well as are available in most
parts of the country throughout the year.
Energy is the most important, critical and vital component in rural agro
processing industries for development, employment generation and economic growth
as this sector constitute a major consumer of commercially produced energy. For the
sustainable development of a region, industrialization is to be supplemented with
integrated energy planning approaches. The conservation of energy in industrial sector
can be achieved through end use efficiency improvement and utilization of renewable
energy technologies which are renewable in nature and which could be harnessed in a
decentralized way. The naturally available solar energy can effectively be utilized for
drying with process time reduction. The integration of these renewable technologies
with non-renewable is the need of agro industry for better performance and
sustainable development.
In recent years availability of power in India has both increased and improved
but demand has consistently outstripped supply and substantial energy and peak
shortages prevailed in 2009-10. There are also various estimates of 25000 to 35000
MW of power being produced by diesel combustion to meet the deficits. Electricity
shortage is not the only problem. Its spread is an equally serious issue. In the past, the
selection of an energy resource for electricity generation was dominated by finding
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the least expensive power generating plant. Although such an approach is essential,
there is growing concern about other aspects of power generation such as social,
environmental and technological benefits and consequences of the energy source
selection. It can be observed that coal has the maximum global warming potential
followed by Natural Gas and others. Further, it needs to be re-emphasized that for
India, like most developing countries, the cost of producing electricity is of paramount
concern while planning for the type of plant to be installed and commissioned and
more so with abundant supply of coal. However, in the long run if we take the effect
of the pollutants on human health and environment and cost as well as efforts needed
to improve or alter the path of degradation, the initial higher cost of using renewable
resources for producing energy may not be too big.
A high degree of caution is also needed as emerging economies like India may
not at present have financial resources to leapfrog directly to cleaner mechanisms of
energy. Since global warming is an international phenomenon and it has no
boundaries there is an urgent need for the transfer of technology and development of
appropriate financial instruments from developed the world to nations who are still
trying to find their rightful places. No argument is needed to understand the world is
today facing the problem of global warming due to rapid industrialization and
urbanization followed by the western world. In terms of per capita equity India is
145th in the world with a release of 1.25 t CO2 per annum.
To improve the overall efficiency, hybridization of renewable energy
technologies with non- renewable energy technologies plays an important role. A
simple method of harnessing solar energy is the thermal conversion system that
collects and utilizes the suns energy in the form of heat. Collection of solar radiation
and its subsequent transfer to a fluid is essentially achieved by solar thermal
collectors. The use of collectors is to produce the thermal energy required for many
applications like heating water, air, space heating, drying, electricity generation, etc.
1.2 Climate Change Scenario
Climate change is one of the primary concerns for humanity in the 21st
century. It may affect health through a range of pathways, for example as a result of
increased frequency and intensity of heat waves, reduction in cold related deaths,
increased floods and droughts, changes in the distribution of vector-borne diseases
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and effects on the risk of disasters and malnutrition. The overall balance of effects on
health is likely to be negative and populations in low income countries are likely to be
particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects. The experience of the 2003 heat wave in
Europe showed that high-income countries may also be adversely affected. The
potentially most important environmental problem relating to energy is global climate
change (global warming or the greenhouse effect). The increasing concentration of
greenhouse gases such as CO2, CH4 , CFCs, halogens, N2O, ozone, and
peroxyacetylnitrate in the atmosphere is acting to trap heat radiated from the Earths
surface and is raising the surface temperature of the Earth. Many scientific studies
reveal that overall CO2 levels have increased 31% in the past 200 years, 20 Gt of
Carbon added to environment since 1800 only due to deforestation and the
concentration of methane gas which is responsible for ozone layer depletion has more
than doubled since then. The global mean surface temperature has increased by 0.4
0.8 C in the last century above the baseline of 14C. Increasing global temperature
ultimately increases global mean sea levels at an average annual rate of 12 mm over
the last century. Arctic sea ice thinned by 40% and decreased in extent by 1015% in
summer since the 1950s.
India is facing with the challenges of sustaining its rapid economic while
dealing with the global threat of climate change. This threat emanated from green
house gas emissions in the atmosphere, anthopogenically generated through long term
and industrial growth and high consumption life style in developed countries.
Climate change may alter distribution and quality of Indias natural resources
and adversely affect the livelihood of its people. With an economy closely tied to its
natural resource based and climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water and
forestry, India may face a major threat because of the projected change in climate. An
approach must be based on a global vision inspired by Mahatma Gandhis wise
dictum. The earth has enough resources to meet peoples need, but will never have
enough to satisfy peoples greed. Thus we must not only promote sustainable
production processes, but equally, sustainable lifestyles across the globe.
The success of our national efforts would be significantly enhanced provided
the developed countries affirm their responsibility for accumulated greenhouse
emissions and fulfill their commitments under the UNFCC to transfer new and
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additional financial resources and climate friendly technologies to support both

adaptation and mitigation in developing countries.
In this connection, India is determined that its per capita green house
emissions will at no point exceed that of developed countries even as we pursue
development objectives.
1.3 Scope of Renewable Energy Technologies in India
India has been making continuous progress in conventional as well as
renewable power generation. It is observed that renewable grid capacity has increased
more than 5 times in a span of 8 years and this compares favorably with the EU and
far exceeds that of the US. The growth so far is largely based on thermal but all other
sources have also made important contributions. However, problems are beginning to
occur in each sector of conventional power. Mining and import of coal are both facing
problems, especially for the huge quantities required. Moreover, at projected usage
levels, questions are also raised about the period Indias extractable coal reserves
could last.
Environmental and climate change threats are getting more severe and project
clearances more difficult to obtain. In spite of many policy and infrastructural
initiatives, it appears unlikely that quantities required to achieve projected
conventional power capacity will be available. Large hydro projects are also facing
problems largely related to environmental issues and some to project execution in
difficult areas along with attendant issues of building long transmission lines. Natural
gas difficulties and its competitive usages also do not create optimism. Nuclear power
capacity building continues to face its own problems, especially with the huge targets
proposed. In the above backdrop, therefore, it could reasonably be expected that there
could be substantial and worrisome slippages in creating conventional power
capacities over the next two decades and even in the long term. It is almost inevitable
that this would lead to more consumption of diesel, furnace oil and kerosene. In a
situation where India is currently importing more than 80% of the countrys fuel
needs and with internal reserves unlikely to improve this percentage, serious problems
of energy security would arise. Moreover, these may entail rising financial burdens of
import and internal financial burdens of subsidies, which are already controversial. It
is, therefore, imperative that substantive measures be taken to reduce their
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consumption for energy purposes and also reducing consumption drastically in

personalized urban and long-distance freight transport. If energy shortages persist it is
difficult to expect much improvement in energy access. India has an ambitious
program of rural electrification as named RGGVY.
However, even though this may provide grid connectivity to many uncovered
areas (still leaving substantial numbers unconnected), actual supply of electricity
through the grid would remain both constrained and unpredictable. Providing energy
access and energy security for the poor would, therefore, continue to be a major issue
and problem. Solutions to this simply have to be found but which no longer appear
possible from conventional sources. It is clear that Indias need for secure, affordable,
and environmentally sustainable energy has become one of the principal economic
and development challenges for the country. It is also clear that while energy
conservation and energy efficiency have an important role to play in the national
energy strategy, renewable energy will become a key part of the solutions and is likely
to play an increasingly important role for augmentation of grid power, providing
energy access, reducing consumption of fossil fuels and helping India pursue its low
carbon developmental pathway.
India is endowed with vast solar energy potential. About 5,000 trillion kWh
per year energy is incident over Indias land area with most parts receiving 4-7 kWh
per sq. m per day. Hence both technology routes for conversion of solar radiation into
heat and electricity, namely, solar thermal and solar photovoltaics, can effectively be
harnessed providing huge scalability for solar in India. Solar also provides the ability
to generate power on a distributed basis and enables rapid capacity addition with short
lead times. Off-grid decentralized and low-temperature applications will be
advantageous from a rural electrification perspective and meeting other energy needs
for power and heating and cooling in both rural and urban areas. From an energy
security perspective, solar is the most secure of all sources, since it is abundantly
available. Theoretically, a small fraction of the total incident solar energy (if captured
effectively) can meet the entire countrys power requirements. It is also clear that
given the large proportion of poor and energy un-served population in the country,
every effort needs to be made to exploit the relatively abundant sources of energy
available to the country. While, today, domestic coal based power generation is the
cheapest electricity source, future scenarios suggest that this could well change.

The National Action Plan on Climate Change also points out: India is a
tropical country, where sunshine is available for longer hours per day and in great
intensity. Solar energy, therefore, has great potential as future energy source. It also
has the advantage of permitting the decentralized distribution of energy, thereby
empowering people at the grassroots level.
With the objective to establish India as a global leader in solar energy, by
creating the policy conditions for its diffusion across the country as quickly as
possible Government of India has launched Jawahar Lal Nehru National Solar
Mission.
The National Tariff Policy was amended in January 2011 to prescribe solarspecific RPO be increased from a minimum of 0.25 per cent in 2012 to 3 per cent by
2022. CERC and SERCs have issued various regulations including solar RPOs, REC
framework, tariff, grid connectivity, forecasting etc. for promoting solar energy. Many
States have come up with up their own solar policy.
In view of the ongoing efforts of Central and State Governments and various
agencies for promoting solar energy, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has
undertaken an exercise to track and analyze the issues in fulfillment of Solar Power
Purchase Obligation and implementation of Solar REC framework in India. This
would help various stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities in the
development of solar power.
1.3.1 Solar energy potential
Among the various renewable energy resources, India possesses a very large
solar energy potential; most parts of the country are blessed with good amounts of
sunshine. There are about 300 clear sunny days in a year in most parts of country. The
average solar radiation incident over India varies from 4 kWh/day - 7 kWh/day. The
solar radiation received over the Indian land area is estimated to be about 5,000
trillion kWh / Yr. In June, 2008, a National Action Plan on Climate Change was
announced, which included eight major national missions with the one on solar
energy being the centre piece. This mission envisages a major step up in the
utilization of solar energy for power generation and other purposes.

The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) was launched by the
Prime Minister of India in January 2010, with a target of 20,000 MW grid solar power
(based on solar thermal power generating systems and solar photovoltaic (SPV)
technologies), 2000 MW of Off grid capacity including 20 million solar lighting
systems and 20 million sq.m. solar thermal collector area by the year 2022. The
Mission will be implemented in three phases. The first phase will be of three years (up
to March, 2013), the second up to March 2017 and the third phase will continue until
March, 2022. The target for phase-I is to set up 1,100 MW grid connected solar plants
including 100 MW of roof top and small solar plants and 200 MW capacity equivalent
off-grid solar applications and 7 million sq. m solar thermal collector area. A new
system has been designed for the 1000 MW projects. These will be implemented
through NTPC Vidyut Vyapar Nigam (NVVN). NVVN will sell the solar power to the
State utilities after bundling solar power with the equivalent capacity of thermal
power. CERC has announced tariffs for the purchase of solar power by NVVN. The
tariff in the year 2011 for PV was Rs.17.91 per unit and Rs. 15.31 per unit for solar
thermal power. The main objectives of the mission are to help reach grid parity by the
year 2022 and help in set up indigenous manufacturing capacity.
1.4 Problems and Justification
Onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of major bulb crop grown in India which
presently attracting attention of all persons due to rise in prices. The price is directly
related to supply-demand of the commodity. An Indian farmer normally pays more
attention to grow those crops which are fetched very good market prices by the year
2012. To get the very good prices during year 2013, many farmers switch to grow
Onion crop due to which supply in the market increases many fold and market glut,
fetches very low prices to farmers commodity such as onions. Onion has special
qualities such as adding taste and flavour to the food hence it is mainly used in several
cuisines and culinary preparations. In addition to that, it is also relished in raw form
with meals. The pungent taste of onion is due to the volatile oil, allyl propyl
disulphide present in it. India has the largest area under onion in the world but is
second to China in production. A number of agencies is involved in research for
improving the quality, production and productivity of onions. The nasik region of

Maharastra is the major producer of onion in the country accounting for almost 30%
of the total crop. It is followed by Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Figure 1 Leading onion producing states in India

Onion is the major vegetable crop of India. It is grown in almost all countries
in the world. India is one of the leading countries in the world producing onions of
high quality and exports considerable quantities earning substantial foreign exchange.
India ranks first in the world with over 435.28 thousand hectare accounting for about
21 per cent of the world area planted under onion. Leading onion production countries
are China, India, United States, Turkey and Iran, respectively. The production of
onion in India is 5942.50 thousand tons in 2004-2005, with share of around 14 per
cent of world's production. There is an increase in onion production with annual
growth rate of 3.59 per cent in India over last few years. The approximately 10
percent of world onion production is traded internationally. Onion is a pride item of
agricultural exports earning valuable foreign exchange to our country. Onion shares
67 per cent of total fresh vegetable export of the country. There is two folds increase
in annual export of onions from the country that is from 5.00 lakh MT in 2001-02 to
9.00 lakh MT in 2004-05 (MSAMB, 2005).
Onion is perishable due to its higher moisture content (about 82 per cent w.b.).
The quality, appearance, colour, flavour and texture, deteriorates due to spoilage
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caused by microorganisms, enzymes, vinegar flies, etc. Microorganisms grow,

multiply and thrive in presence of moisture and oxygen to degrade the harvested
onions. The bruises, caused during mechanical harvesting and handling, accelerate the
process and cause internal contamination of onions. Therefore, the harvested onions
should be marketed, processed or preserved as early as possible. To overcome this
problem, drying is prerequisite process for proper storage of onion. Drying enhancing
their shelf life, reduces weight and volume of foods substantially, in addition to it
minimizes packaging, storage and transportation costs. Dehydration of onion permit
transformation of raw onions into various products such as ketchup, chutney, sauce,
puree, dry soup mix etc. Dehydrated onions in the form of flakes and powder are in
extensive demand in several parts of the world i.e. UK, Japan, Russia, Germany,
Netherlands, Spain etc. Presently, the export of this commodity is increasing with an
annual growth rate of 7.64 per cent.

Viewing at the production, requirement of

processing and potential of market for export of onion, onion is selected for the
present research work. Viewing at the production, requirement of processing and
potential of market for export, onion is selected for the present research work.
The world population is more than 6 billion and about 20-25 percent people
does not have enough food to eat. It has been estimated that world as a whole more
than 20-25 percent food grains and 30-50 percent vegetable, fruits etc. are lost before
it reaches to the consumer (Patel et.al, 2013). To overcome spoilage problems of food
grains, vegetables and fruits, various preserving methods have been adopted and
renewable energy sources are the best for this purpose by which one can save the
energy for preservation and keep the product in its natural flavour.
Most of the agricultural products are dried at temperature range of 45-75 0C.
Solar energy can be used to heat air up to this range of temperature needed for drying
of most of the agricultural products, efficiently and economically without
compromising in quality of final product. Even in the cases where higher temperature
than those possible with simple solar air heaters is needed, preheating can be done and
this results in substantial saving of conventional fuels and assured good results. In
India, the average solar radiation available is 5 kW/m2/day for 250-300 days in year
with approximately 8-10 full sunshine hours.

There are many types and designs of solar dryers available for drying of
agricultural commodity. They mainly include natural convection cabinet dryer and
forced circulation solar dryer based on array of flat plate air heaters. In these types of
dryer, drying is not continuous and during night time moisture is absorbed by the
product. Due to this total fungal count and total microbes count increases. And also
solar energy is intermittent in nature and time dependent energy source. To overcome
this problem, electric heater can be used to make drying continuous and during night
times or off sunshine hours electric heater can be used for the drying purpose.
Dehumidifier absorbs the moisture present in the air and recirculates the exhaust air.
Thus the exhaust air can be utilized and minimizes the energy input.
Thus keeping in view of off seasonal utilization of onion, investigation was
carried out for drying of onion through hybrid drying system with the following
specific objectives:
1. To design and develop hybrid dryer based on solar and electrical energy.
2. To evaluate the performance of developed system for drying of agricultural
products.
3. To study the techno economic feasibility of the developed system.

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