A Techno-Economic Framework for Energy-Efficient and Intelligent Cold Storage Management in Agricultural Supply Chains

Abstract

Smallholder farmers face high post-harvest losses due to the costly, grid-dependent cold chains with limited monitoring and market access. The current study presents an integrated framework combining Photovoltaic (PV) refrigeration with Phase-Change Materials (PCM) for thermal buffering, Internet of Things (IoT) monitoring, a Controlled-Atmosphere (CA) loop, and a lightweight mobile marketplace. A 200 L prototype was deployed for 30 days in a peri-urban cluster near Dharwad, India. The present study evaluated the daily energy use, temperature/Relative Humidity (RH) stability, shelf life, price realization, and 3-year Return On Investment (ROI). With PCM, energy fell by ~28% (to 2.5–2.7 kWh/day from 3.4–3.6 kWh/day), while the chamber temperature held within ±1.1 °C with <6% RH variation. The shelf life extended up to 4×, and app users realized ~22% higher prices, yielding an estimated 3-year ROI of ~2.05×. Compared with conventional storage, the results highlight the joint value of PCM-assisted cooling, closed-loop IoT/CA control, and market linkage for smallholders.