Solar-Powered Coffee Dryer

$1,000,000.00

  • 100% Renewable hybrid solar power/biofuel technology.
  • Used for drying green coffees. (Replaces wood-burning coffee dryers)
  • 100% Off-grid, renewable energy; powered by solar and biofuel.
Product Benefits
  • No forest is cut down to power the drying process.
  • Reduces electricity consumption from 10.5 kilowatt hours per sack to 2.0 kilowatt hours per sack.
  • Co-generation of energy produces 15 kWh of electric power, the dryer only needs 2 kWh.
  • Reduced the water demand from 1000-2000L/100lbs of coffee to 36L/100lbs coffee using a mechanized, friction-based process; a reduction of more than 90%.
  • Cost to dry a batch of coffee is cut down — from $4.00 per 100lb bag with the conventional commercial dryers (powered by firewood, diesel, propane, electricity), to $0.40 per 100lb bag with this first-of-its-kind solar-powered dryer.
SKU: S17-ST-MIS-01 Category:

Description

Additional Product Details
  • Advanced, off-grid coffee-drying technology that replaces conventional, wood-burning dryers, reducing coffee’s carbon footprint and saving forests from being unnecessarily harvested.
  • The elimination of firewood for fuel conserves 1 ha per tower per season.
  • The elimination of firewood results in a reduction in emissions of 364 metric tons of carbon dioxide per season.
The transition from the power grid to 100% renewable energy results in an additional reduction of 49 metric tons of carbon dioxide per season.
  • Dryer Location: Yoro, Honduras. (Dryers can be installed in other locations as well)
  • To achieve reductions in wood use and GHG emissions in green coffee production, a combination of solar thermal and biomass gasification is used to dry coffee beans in a vertical, tower-like, natural convection drying chamber.
  • Solar thermal collectors are used during the day and the gasification of coffee husks; a by-product of coffee processing that would be ordinarily wasted, is used at night or during rainy periods when solar power is insufficient.
Product Specs
  • Dimensions: 6 ft wide x 24 ft long x 25 ft tall
  • Batch Size: 48 quintales (48 x 100lb sacks, or 4,800 lbs total) of green beans
  • Time & temperature in the drying chamber: 24 hrs per batch, at 45-50 degrees Celsius
  • Energy Source: powered by solar panels by day, and by biomass (coffee husks & locally produced jatropha oil) by night & on cloudy days.

Related products