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Solar Heating Potential in Kenyan Tea Industry
Dalarna University, School of Technology and Business Studies, Energy Technology.
2020 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Kenya plays a significant role among the world's highest tea producer- and exporter countries. The tea sector in Kenya is one of the most significant employers and represents a substantial portion of the country's export income. Tea industry in Kenya previously depended on oil fuel, but due to the rising cost of oil, the consequences made the industries switch to biomass fuel. The thermal processes for tea production are carried out using wood fuel such as eucalyptus trees and other fast-growing trees, that have high water absorption and affect the water table of the ground. As the demand for wood fuel has increased to meet the ever-increasing demand for thermal energy, the Kenyan forests are exposed to critical deforestation resulting in ecological consequences. Consequently, interest in solving the issues on thermal energy usage and supplying source has been shown both from the government and the private sector.This thesis presents the benefits of integrating solar thermal energy into the tea industry with a focus on preserving the Kenyan forest. The study evaluates the CO2 emissions and the saved land area by switching to solar energy covering 25 %, 50 %, 75 %, and 100 % of total thermal demand in the Kenyan tea industry using a scientific approach. The estimated required land area to cover the thermal energy demand in different scenarios by integrating solar energy has been evaluated. A single-axis parabolic trough solar collectors (T160) manufactured by Swedish manufacturer "Absolicon Solar Collector AB" has been used for this study. A field simulator has been carried out to obtain the results of the required collector area and thus the land to fulfil the thermal energy demand for the tea production.The result of this work presents that solar thermal has significant potential to decarbonise the tea industry in Kenya. The temperature produced by parabolic solar collectors can be used to meet a major share of thermal demand in the Kenyan tea industry. Moreover, by using solar energy, up to 945 000 tonnes of CO2 equivalents could be avoided in 25 years, and up to 9213 hectares of land area could be preserved and utilised for various purposes to affect in environmental and economic aspects. In addition to energy savings, the infusion of solar energy can bring the positive ecological impact for Kenya such as an increase in the water table, reforestation, decrease in environmental pollution, and opportunity to increase the tea plantation area.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020.
Keywords [en]
Tea industry, Deforestation, Water availability, Emissions, Solar thermal
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-34467OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-34467DiVA, id: diva2:1451367
Available from: 2020-07-02 Created: 2020-07-02

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf