ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT OF A WOOD SOLAR DRYER

Abstract

In wood manufacturing and its processing, drying is the greatest time and energy consuming phase. From the high infrastructure investment and energy costs of conventional dryers, it was necessary to find viable alternatives to dry wood at low cost. One of them is calorific energy through solar dryers. Normally the profitability of a solar dryer depends on the total cost of the collector, so the trend in the design of solar dryers is towards simplicity, in order to reduce the infrastructure investment and operating costs to the maximum, and thus to increase their profitability. Therefore, low cost materials with good performance in solar applications, such as plastics, favor the possibility of using solar energy in wood drying. In this study was carried out the economic evaluation of a greenhouse type solar dryer; the present or current value or discounted cash flow was calculated as well as the investment return period and its profitability. The solar drying process cost by load is MEX$ 17,675.00, which when commercializing the wood generates an income of MEX$ 43,000.00 and a utility to MEX$ 25,325.00 M.N. Annual income is $ 215,925.00. Investment recovery is achieved at the end of the fourth drying load with a profitability of 240 %.