SOLAR TOBACCO DRYING PLANT

ABSTRACT The paper describes the solar section of a tobacco curing facility. Bulk curing of tobacco lasts seven days, during which the temperature of the hot air ranges between 35° C and 70° C. The solar section is made up of 74 m 2 of concentrator collectors, 2 tanks for heat storage with a total capacity of 6000 litres and a water-air heat exchanger with an area of 60 m 2 . The solar energy system has been designed to produce 40% of the total heating load with 15% of this thru heat recovery and 25% by the direct conversion of solar energy.