Energetica India nº91 July August 2020

CASE STUDY Target Oriented Approach Can Boost Solar Heating in Food Processing Jaideep N. Malaviya Project Head Solar Payback, India The Indo-German cooperation project “Solar Payback” for ac- celerating Solar Heat for Industrial Process (SHIP) has identi- fied food processing as one of the potential industrial sectors as per the study undertaken by Solar Thermal Federation of India (STFI). Figure1 below lists the potential industrial sectors that should adopt Solar Heat for Industrial Process (SHIP) in their various production processes. Figure 1: Potential industrial sectors best suited to adopt Solar Heat for Industrial Process There are over 40,000 food processing industries in India; consisting of, both, small and large entities. Every 1 million m2 of concentrated solar thermal systems under continuous operation basis can result in annual diesel savings of 7 million litres and abate worth 20,000 tons of CO 2 annually. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), government of India has been at the forefront promoting Solar Heat for In- dustrial Process (SHIP) since 2010 and over 30,000 m2 area of SHIP systems have been commissioned in India through fiscal measures from multilateral agencies. India presently is the fourth best global market. Food processing and its segments India is the world’s second largest producer of food prod- ucts second only to China. The food processing industry is one of the largest industries in India and ranks fifth in terms of production, consumption and exports. The Indian food processing market is worth INR 25,000 billion and is likely to achieve INR 50,000 billion by 2024, exhibiting a CAGR of 12.4% during 2019-2024. It constitutes 14 per cent to India’s GDP through manufacturing. The Solar Payback study reveals food industry and beverag- es sector has a large heat demand in the temperature range up to 150°C. Common processes are pasteurization of liquid Figure 2: Solar process heating system at a dairy processing unit in Ludhiana (source: National Dairy Development Board)