Renewable Energy Technologies for Cashew Nut Processing : Design, development and techno-economic evaluation

Cashew nut industry in India employs various unit operations for cashew nut processing with wide disparities in energy consumption to process. The dependency on energy can be reduced by end use efficiency enhancement along with shift over to renewable energy technologies. The intervention of energy intensive unit operations using renewable energy technologies was carried out. The unit operations involved in cashew nut processing was elucidated with analysis of energy consumption patterns. The energy estimation in unit operations namely- drying of raw cashew nut seed, steaming of dried cashew nut seed and drying of cashew kernel was studied and the appropriate renewable energy technologies were identified for reducing the energy consumption. Subsequently, these technologies were designed, developed, installed and evaluated for their techno-economic feasibility. It provide the ecological perspective of rural agro industries and help to identify the technical measures for improving energy efficiency which could ultimately leads to more economic growth, employment generation and development.