Commercial solar Dryer

The Briquette production at Green Heat Uganda Ltd depended on weather conditions because sun is key in our drying processes. Frequent downpours during rainy seasons cut the production to half of its capacity. Since moisture content is a quality characteristic of briquettes, it has to be reduced from 50 % to below 10 % before sale. Thus the dependency on weather conditions meant a financial risk to the company. Considered as one of the cheapest drying options, CREEC recommended the use of a solar dryer. Only very few commercial solar dryers are used in Uganda. Furthermore, there is virtually no local market comprising of solar dryer businesses. To support the commercial use of solar dryers in Uganda, we have implemented a demonstration project at Green Heat Uganda Ltd with generous support from Afri Banana Products.

Objectives are;

1. to make a simplified designing scheme available and enabling local fabricating.
2. identify crucial parameters to improve the draft.
3. analyze  implementation and operational cost of the solar dryer at Green Heat Uganda Ltd through evaluation of costs, efficiency compared to other technologies such as electric dryers.

We at Green Heat hope that the solar dryer will allow increased turnover with simultaneous improvement of product quality and reliability of the production process.