Microturbine Combined Cooling and Power: A Cold Storage Solution for the Nigerian Agricultural Industry

Abstract

This project is motivated by the waste of food produce in Nigeria, which is in part from a lack of industrial cold storage. Nigeria’s subpar electric grid makes it difficult to implement conventional industrial cold storage technologies, which tend to be heavily reliant on the grid. As a result, this project attempts to fill the void through a reliable, efficient and autonomous solution, independent of the grid. The proposed solution is a cold storage unit powered by a microturbine combined cooling and power system. The system increases overall efficiency by generating cooling power electrically as well as by recovering and converting waste heat to cooling power. It is modeled in MATLAB and Simulink using SimPowerSystems and Thermolib. To make a case for the system, it was compared to a popular alternative which uses a genset powered compressor chiller. It was determined that the combined cooling and power system generates more cooling power, is more fuel efficient and more cost effective at any load. As a result, microturbine combined cooling and power is a feasible solution that can fi the cold storage void and can go a long way to reduce hunger and poverty in Nigeria.