Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy for Sustainable Development

Overcoming barriers to solar dryer adoption and the promise of

multi-seasonal use in India
Michael L. Machala a,b,⁎, Frederick L. Tan b,c,d, Andrey Poletayev e, Mohammad I. Khan f, Sally M. Benson a,b
a
Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
b
Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
c
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
d
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
e
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
f
Agriculture Division, Deshpande Foundation, Hubballi, Karnataka 580031, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Food and income loss caused by conventional open-sun drying of crops could be reduced through the use of
Received 17 January 2022 protected solar drying equipment. Yet, solar dryers have not been widely adopted among the majority 470 mil-
Accepted 22 February 2022 lion smallholder farms worldwide. Combining primary survey and field data on dried chili harvests collected in
Available online 17 March 2022
India, this paper demonstrates for the first time how technical, financial, and operational barriers combine to
limit smallholder ownership of commercially available hoophouse tunnel dryers. It then addresses those barriers
Keywords:
Solar drying
using a systems-level approach. First, economic loss due to degradation of chilies in open-sun drying is quanti-
Multi-seasonal use fied, averaging 34% of potential revenue. Despite demonstrated revenue gains of 22% based on improved quality,
Operational model technoeconomic analysis indicates that seasonally stranded solar dryers are not profitable enough to overcome
Technoeconomic model capital and operational cost barriers: cumulative income parity with open-sun drying is not reached for 3–7
Smallholder farmer years. Second, to address this major adoption barrier, complementary multi-seasonal revenue streams are intro-
India duced that incorporate both drying of crops and growing of seedlings in the same dryer structure for year-round
revenue generation. Together with service-based operation to support smallholder access, payback time is de-
creased by at least 50% relative to single-season usage. Adding available financing schemes, multi-season dual-
use dryers could reach payback in 1 year versus 6.5 years for drying-only usage, reducing the financial adoption
barrier by up to 85%. This suggests that multi-season utility can drive solar dryer adoption. Finally, a sensitivity
analysis of single- and dual-use solar dryer operations is provided and their practical implementation by small-
holder farmers is discussed.
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of International Energy Initiative. This is an open access
article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Introduction
While drying is one of the oldest and most popular forms of food
preservation (Hayashi, 1989), it has remained largely unchanged at
the farm level, particularly in developing regions of the world (Löf,
1962). Most farmers dry produce under the open sun either on the
Abbreviations: APMC, Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee; ASTA, American
Spice Trade Association; DaaS, Drying as a Service; duHTD, Dual-Use Hoophouse Tunnel
Dryer; (du)HTD-500,1000,2000, (Dual-Use) HTD with 500, 1000, or 2000 kg drying capac-
ity; (du)HTD-½Ac, (Dual-Use) HTD with ½ Acre or 36,000 kg dryer capacity; duHTD
(1G,3G,5G), duHTD with 1,3, or 5 seedling growing cycles; HTD, Hoophouse Tunnel
Dryer; NaaS, Nursery as a Service; NPV, Net Present Value; ReMS, Rashtriya e-Market
Services (http://www.remsl.in/).
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
E-mail address: mmachala@stanford.edu (M.L. Machala).
ground, hung up, or left on a plant. Sunlight is the source of energy
that drives water evaporation, and wind removes humidified air
(Hayashi, 1989; Sodha et al., 1985). Despite the widespread perception
that open-sun drying is free of cost, this practice often requires hiring
manual labor and takes weeks to complete. During this weeks-long pe-
riod of drying, a harvest can suffer degradation from stochastic environ-
mental factors such as unexpected rain or fog as well as ever-present
factors like pests and UV photobleaching; this results in food and in-
come loss (Udomkun et al., 2020). These downsides have spurred a
multi-decade effort among researchers and practitioners to create alter-
native crop-drying technologies to benefit the estimated 2.5 billion peo-
ple who work in agriculture within developing regions (FAO, 2016; Löf,
1962; Prakash & Kumar, 2013; Tiwari, 2003; Udomkun et al., 2020).
However, such efforts have faced significant technical, financial, and op-
erational barriers (Supplementary Section S1.1) (Ahmed et al., 2017;
ELkhadraoui et al., 2015; Fudholi et al., 2014; Fudholi et al., 2015;
Kandpal et al., 2003; Purohit et al., 2006), which severely limit

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esd.2022.02.001
0973-0826/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. on behalf of International Energy Initiative. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by/4.0/).
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al. Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28

market-based adoption within the majority ~84% (470 million) of farm-
ing families worldwide who work on plots of land less than two hect-
ares (Lowder et al., 2016). These smallholder farms would benefit
most from appropriate drying technology (Fan et al., 2020). This paper
quantifies and addresses the technoeconomic and operational barriers
to adoption of solar dryers in smallholder farming communities.
Fundamentally, drying is relatively energy intensive. Crop drying re-
quires ~30 times more energy than cooling and ~ 6 times more than
freezing, as represented in Fig. 1a using thermodynamic data for pure
water. In developing regions with limited electricity supply (Abhishek
et al., n.d.; Bank, 2017), the sun is the only viable energy source for
the majority of smallholder farmers beyond biomass. To help farmers
reap the benefits of protected solar dryers over open-sun drying,
many products have been created with capacities ranging from 10s to
1000 kg (El Hage et al., 2018; Prakash & Kumar, 2013; Udomkun et al.,
2020). Physically, a solar dryer either increases heat input into the dry-
ing process (i.e. capturing solar energy over a specified area), acceler-
ates water removal, or both. The thermodynamic and kinetic figures of
merit for solar dryers, i.e. energy efficiency and time reduction relative
to traditional open-sun drying methods, have received substantial re-
search attention (El Hage et al., 2018; Prakash & Kumar, 2013; Sahdev
et al., 2016; Udomkun et al., 2020). More practical questions such as,
“how fast must solar dryers be to promote adoption? Is drying speed
ever sufficient?” are often skirted.
Some analyses consider technoeconomic factors (ELkhadraoui et al.,
2015; Fudholi et al., 2014; Fudholi et al., 2015; Kandpal et al., 2003;
Purohit et al., 2006). However, many do not assess the practical limita-
tions of their analyses. Operation costs, stakeholder risk, and cash flow
from selling dried produce all promote or inhibit adoption, and must
be considered in a full-system technoeconomic model. For example,
smallholder harvests are often 100 s–1000s kg in size, meaning efforts
on smaller-scale dryers for such applications are potentially inadequate
and over-simplified: farmers cannot be expected to shift harvest pat-
terns to fit a dryer under normal circumstances. At the same time, a
dryer that fits a full harvest will necessarily run empty for most of the
season and year, unless it is shared or operated on a service-based
model. As a second example, some technoeconomic models assume
the value of produce dried in a dryer equals the revenue generated to
pay back the capital and operational costs. In essence, this assumes
that open-sun drying yields zero revenue. Instead, this work considers
the difference in profits between open-sun drying and a solar dryer
using both survey and market data. Pairing system-level considerations
with methodological improvement yields unprecedented insight into
the practical barriers to the market-based adoption of solar dryers,
which can then be addressed.
Unique contributions
This work is the first to combine technical, financial, and operational
considerations in the deployment of solar dryer technology. Field survey
data (Section 3.1) and market tests (Section 3.2) are used to parameter-
ize a technoeconomic comparison of solar drying versus traditional
open-sun drying (Section 3.3). Commercially available drying solutions
are shown to be unprofitable in single-season use. These products do
not match the needs of smallholder farmers, which explains the lack
of adoption at scale. In response, an innovation to address this discon-
nect combines service-based and multi-seasonal equipment uses of
solar dryers for year-round revenue generation (Section 3.4). The im-
proved affordability, operational efficiency, and access to high-quality
drying and additional services offer a path to market-based, widespread
adoption of solar dryers by smallholder farmers.
Solar dryer opportunities and limitations in India
An estimated one quarter of the world's farming population lives
in India, most of them smallholders (Lowder et al., 2016). India is
also a global leader in the production of many agricultural commod-
ities, including dried chilies at an average of 1.7 million tonnes per
year between 2017 and 2019 (FAO, 2020). Fig. 1b shows the average
daily wholesale spot prices for quality-sensitive dried products in
Karnataka, weighted by the daily volumes of sales (ReMS, 2020).
The price gap between minimum and maximum prices, nearly five-
fold for dried chilies, suggests economic gains can be realized by im-
proving product quality among other factors. In this work, the
improvement in quality of dried chilies from protected solar drying
is evaluated in the Indian state of Karnataka, a top dried chili pro-
ducer (Section S1.2), extending the technoeconomic adoption po-
tential laid out by Purohit et al. (Purohit et al., 2006). Additionally,
a framework is provided for assessing the economic viability of dry-
ing different crops at scale (Fig. S2).

Fig. 1. Thermodynamics and Economics of Food Preservation. (a) The theoretical energy transfer requirements for common food preservation or processing techniques: cooling, heating,
freezing, and drying using the properties of pure water at an initial temperature, Ti = 25 °C; for further discussion see Section S1.1.1 of the supplementary; (b) the volume-weighted daily
market prices of prominent, quality-sensitive dried commodities in Karnataka, India, in nominal dollars between 2015 and 20 from ReMS (ReMS, 2020); the average modal, minimum, and
maximum daily market prices are shown for general commodity categories and collectively consider 182,375 daily price data points. Taken together, these values and price spreads suggest
there is economic value to be captured by increasing product quality through improved drying among other factors.

19
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al.
The use of a commercialized solar dryer, the hoophouse tunnel dryer
(HTD), is compared to traditional open-sun drying on the basis of net in-
come parity. Because of its established manufacturing processes over-
lapping with greenhouses, flexibility in size, and relatively low cost
compared to e.g. heat pump dryers (Purohit et al., 2006), HTDs could
find use in cash-constrained settings despite relatively lower thermody-
namic efficiencies (FAO, 2020; Tiwari, 2003; Udomkun et al., 2020).
However, their market fit and potential for adoption at scale has not
been examined until now.
Survey and field data provide evidence for the quality-, yield-, and
income-improvement potential (Sections 3.1,3.2) of HTDs over tradi-
tional open-sun drying operations. Despite these and other HTD benefits,
this work shows that it can take 3–7 years or more for an HTD to reach net
income parity with open-sun drying based on consistent quality improve-
ment alone. For smallholder farmers with limited disposable income and
financing access, this prohibits investment and individual ownership.
Dual-use dryer opportunities
In response to the identified solar dryer adoption barriers, this work
proposes an operational model to support the adoption of solar dryers
by smallholder farmers. Since individual ownership of solar drying
technology may not be economically feasible for many smallholder
farmers (Section 3.3), two proposed opportunities, inspired by field
implementations, are evaluated: (1) service-based operational models,
which offer the benefits of equipment usage to farmers without the up-
front capital cost; and (2) multi-season equipment usage, which ex-
tends dryer value addition to other times of year by providing
seedlings in the growing season. In Section 3.4, this work explores
whether multi-seasonal revenue streams from growing seedlings and
drying produce can incentivize a would-be owner to purchase and oper-
ate a dual-use HTD (duHTD) for profit while simultaneously benefiting
smallholder farmers (Huang & Bowers, 1986; Tiwari, 2003). Analysis
suggests over a 50% reduction in payback time with dual-use versus
drying-only use. The practical challenges of dual-use dryer implementa-
tion are discussed along with available financing options.
Materials and methods
Location selection
Dharwad and Ballari Districts of Karnataka, India were selected for
this case study. They are large producers of dried chilies with different
production yields. Ballari District shares a border with Andhra Pradesh,
the most productive dried chili-growing state in India (Table S1). In
Ballari, Deshpande Foundation internal reports from 2018 to 19 speci-
fied that the open-sun dried chili production is ~4 metric tonnes of
dried chili per hectare in a typical year, translating to a typical net in-
come of ₹1.5 lakh per chili hectare (₹150,000 or $2140). In Dharwad,
the Deshpande Foundation internal reports indicated lower dried chili
production yield with typical values between 1.9 and 2.5 t per hectare,
close to the state average of 1.7 t per hectare and closer to the national
average of 2.2 t per hectare (Spices Board, 2020). These districts were
also chosen because the Deshpande Foundation, a local non-profit fo-
cused on rural development, has been present in the region for decades,
understands the challenges facing farmers, and has built trust with the
farming communities. Additionally, Karnataka has one of the most com-
prehensive digital agricultural market platforms, Rashtriya eMarket Ser-
vices Private Ltd. (ReMS) that records and shares historic data for
analyzing market trends. Data for of commodity prices between 2015
and 2020 were accessed through www.remsl.in (ReMS, 2020).
Data collection
The project and methods were reviewed and approved by the
Stanford Internal Review Board (protocol IRB-43815). All reported
20
Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28
data originates from structured surveys with close-ended questions.
Enumerators from DF are trained in horticulture with rigorous field
work and farmer interview training. Enumerators from Morsel Research
and Development are professionally trained to carry out surveys. Three
separate surveys were conducted.
Survey: chili quality
Data on chili quality and harvest composition was collected by DF af-
filiates from 55 farmers representing 8 villages in either Dharwad or
Ballari districts between February–March 2020. The Byadagi chili vari-
ety was selected for study based on its popularity in the two districts.
Chili qualities were divided into five grades, spanning lowest to highest
qualities based on DF horticulturist recommendation. Qualities were
shown in the same order depicted in this paper and farmers were
asked to estimate relative prices of each grade and the composition of
those grades in their dried chili harvests. Participating farmers were ei-
ther familiar with DF or were recommended by their neighbors who
were familiar with DF. Thus, the data collection was not randomized
but the result of a snowball sampling approach (Teddlie & Yu, 2007).
Survey: harvest and drying
Data on farmers' reported wastage and on harvest and drying pro-
cesses were collected through randomized surveys performed by Mor-
sel Research and Development of 60 farmers representing 12 villages
in either Dharwad or Ballari District without connection to DF between
January–March 2019. This represents dried chilies that were not
marketed.
Survey: nursery operations
Using covid-19 precautions, data on nursery inputs and operational
costs were collected in August 2020 by DF affiliates from three different
nurseries (½ or 1 acre) in Dharwad District. The average value of inputs
and operational costs are reported in Section S8.2 of the supplementary.
Dried chili market test
The potential for market price improvement from use of a
Hoophouse Tunnel Dryer (HTD) relative to traditional drying was
assessed with a blind A/B market pricing test. (Section 3.1). A farmer
in Dharwad district volunteered to split 200 kg of fresh chilies into
two batches. One hundred kilograms were dried at his farm using the
traditional open-sun method and the other 100 kg in an HTD-1000
(1000-kg drying capacity). The farmer received assurance that if the
HTD chilies were ruined or received lower market price than from tradi-
tional drying, the difference would be paid for by the project. Chilies in
the HTD were not spread in a monolayer on trays but loaded as if the
dryer were at full capacity with chilies layered 7–10 cm in height in
each tray. Once both drying methods were finished and prior to sale, 1
kg of representative dried chilies from each drying method was pack-
aged and sealed in plastic bags and sent to the Quality Evaluation Labo-
ratory, Spice Board in Kerala. Capsaicin content was assessed by HPLC
and color value by the American Spice Trade Association (ASTA)
method. The remaining chilies were separated into two grades by la-
borers per the farmer's recommendation. Separated chilies from each
drying method were packed in similar gunny bags and taken by the
farmer to a market overseen by the Agriculture Produce Marketing
Committee (APMC) and then sold without telling the buyer about
each drying method.
Data analysis
Data from surveys collected by DF affiliates and Morsel Research
were evaluated separately using descriptive statistics and coded by
the primary author. Wholesale spot price data from Rashtriya e-
Market Services (ReMS, www.remsl.in/) was cleaned to eliminate
major outliers.
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al. Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28

Quality assessment Table 1

Data of chili quality comparison between traditional- and HTD-dried Quoted and extrapolated prices of HTDs and duHTDs from different companies with ex-
trapolated prices (*) and those that include cement floors (†). Capacities are as estimated
chilies were as-received from the Quality Evaluation Laboratory, Spice by the companies though this value depends on how the dryer is loaded.
Board in Kerala and compared relative to each other.
Company Capacity Cost [$] Comments
[kg]
Financial methods
A 500⁎ $1600 25 m2, assumed area
1000 $3000 55 m2
All values in Indian rupees were converted to U.S. dollars at ₹70 =
1500 $4400 80 m2
$1. Unless specified, the price assumed for dried chilies was the Karna- 2000⁎ $5600 100 m2, assumed area
taka state average over the previous 5 years of $1.19 kg−1 (₹83 kg−1) in B 500 $1400 33 m2, includes solar d.c. exhaust fan
nominal dollars. C 500 $1300 30 m2
D 1000 $3600 60 m2
E 1000 $5900 40 m2, Polycarbonate cover
Farmer net income F 100 $930 connected with government subsidy
The net income (revenue minus operational costs) used in this paper 1000 $9300 solar-powered fans, cement-unknown
of a chili farmer for dried chili-related activities totaled $2180 per hect- G 1000† $25,900 Polycarbonate cover, Thailand (Kaewkiew et al.,
are, with assumptions provided in Supplementary Section S7. This net 2012)
income deviated +1.4% from the $2140 value stated in DF internal re-
ports for farmers in Ballari District.
(full price), subsidy (half price), loan (20% of full price) or subsidy
Bank loans with loan (20% of half price). The loan repayment was included
For financing HTDs or duHTDs, a 10.5% APR was used over a 5-year within the 5-year lifetime of the loan. Beyond 5 years, payback was
loan lifetime with a 20% down payment on the capital cost of the equip- at the same rate without a loan and its interest. The operational
ment. This interest was a commonly quoted rate when discussing agri- costs of drying for individual ownership are assumed those of tradi-
culture equipment loans with Karnataka banks and was in the same tional drying, whereas those of service-based models are explained
range as loans from banks across India according to Bank Bazaar in Section S8. Yearly maintenance was set at 5% of the full capital
(Bazaar, 2022). equipment cost (Purohit et al., 2006) and the revenue improvement
was 22% for the HTD over traditional drying as shown in Section 3.2.
Government subsidy Additional assumptions for both Drying-as-a-Service (DaaS) and
Indian government subsidies exist through the National Horticulture Nursery-as-a-Service (NaaS) can be found in the supplementary.
Board, both for HTDs and greenhouses. A post-purchase government
subsidy of 50% of the capital cost for HTDs could be availed from specific Results and discussion
preauthorized vendors for certain dry capacities (Hindu, 2019). For
greenhouses, a 50–90% purchaser-specific subsidy is available depend- Chili quality deterioration and wastage from open-sun drying
ing on purchaser (NHM, 2020). For both HTD and duHTD, a 50% subsidy
is considered in the subsequent analysis. This section details the economic effects of chili degradation during
drying to provide quantitative context to the social issue of open-sun
Capital costs drying and to inform subsequent technoeconomic analyses. To quantify
Hoophouse tunnel dryers can accommodate typical smallholder har- the effect of chili quality and wastage on income in open-sun drying,
vest volumes of 1000+ kg per hectare. Quoted HTD prices from vendors chili farmers in two districts of Karnataka were asked to estimate the
varied based on the quality of building materials and on the complexity percentage of each Byadagi dried-chili quality comprising a typical
of equipment and installation (Table 1). Capacities for HTDs were esti- marketed harvest along with each grade's value, relative to the
mated by vendors, and can range considerably based on crop loading highest-quality A grade (Fig. 2). Such quantification provides a broad
and crop type. Unless specified, quotations are for HTDs using polyeth- counterfactual to the potential economic effects of solar dryer usage. Av-
ylene covers and include trays for holding produce, passive air ventila- erage perceived price drops exceeded 40% for any color other than dark
tion for moisture removal (no electricity), and do not include cement and homogenous red. Lower qualities comprised 53% of farmer chili
flooring. All HTDs included installation cost. Some capacity costs were harvests, where photobleaching degradation (Quality B & C) averaged
extrapolated based on the cost per kg of drying capacity between two 27% and fungal infection (Quality D & E) averaged 26% of harvest com-
different HTDs. A Goods and Services Tax (GST) of 18% was included position. This quality degradation amounts to an average 34% reduction
in each final cost but transportation was not included as it is location- in revenue compared to a 100% composition of Quality A.
specific. Company A was used as the basis for further analysis in this Interestingly, not all farmers reported that there was any market
paper as a balance between quality and price. The capital cost of an value for the lowest quality chilies (Quality E). Such fungus-infected
HTD and a duHTD were assumed to be the same. chilies are rarely exported due to strict quality requirements and test-
The estimated cost of a ½-acre HTD and duHTD was an average of ½- ing, but instead are consumed domestically. They may be added as an
acre greenhouse cost and the ½-acre equivalent of multiple small HTDs adulterant to higher quality ground chili powder to increase weight
as shown in Table 2. The average cost of nursery inputs was scaled down and volume (Ko et al., 2014). Harmful bacteria and mycotoxins pro-
linearly for duHTDs smaller than acre-scale and operational expenses duced by fungi should be avoided, making proper drying and storage
for growing Sonala-hybrid chili seedlings were estimated for a
duHTD-2000 and duHTD-½-acre. (Section S8.2). For this analysis, the
sale price for each chili seedling was set lower than market rate at ₹1 Table 2
Quoted and interpolated prices of ½-acre single- and dual-use solar dryers, HTD and
per seedling. Nurseries reported selling at ₹1.2 per seedling. This was
duHTD, respectively. Prices were an average (*) of multiple smaller HTDs with extrapo-
done in case additional costs, losses, or inefficiencies were unintention- lated capacity (†) and an equivalent-sized greenhouse for growing only.
ally left out.
Company Capacity [kg] Cost [$] Comments

Payback period A 36,000 $77,000 ½-acre, greenhouse estimate

Payback periods to an owner of an HTD or duHTD were calculated 36,000 $85,000 ½-acre, multi-HTD aggregate
This paper 36,000† $81,000* HTD and duHTD, average or above
(Section S8) based on upfront payments including: out-of-pocket

21
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al. Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28

Fig. 2. Quality-dependent Market Pricing of Dried Chilies. (a) Different Byadagi chili quality grades representing highest quality (A), color fade (B & C) and fungal infection (D & E); (b) the
relative market value in early 2020 for chilies of different qualities shown in frame (a) and their average composition reported by farmers (n = 55 farmers, 8 villages, 2 districts) in
Dharwad or Ballari Districts in Karnataka; 53% of marketed chilies were below highest (A) quality, representing a relative decrease in revenue of 34%.

practices a public health concern along with an economic one (Ko et al.,
2014; Williams et al., 2014).
In addition to quality deterioration in open-sun drying, unexpected
rains or fog can destroy part or all of an unprotected drying crop
through widespread fungal infection. Over 55% of surveyed chili farmers
reported at least 10% wastage of their drying crop which was left unsold
at the farm in the 2018–19 season as shown in Fig. 3, where 78% of
farmers attributed this loss to rain and moisture. Changing rain and
monsoon patterns due to climate change are encroaching into the dry-
ing season making this issue increasingly relevant (Roxy et al., 2017;
Saxena et al., 2016). The loss of food during drying not only results in
lost income and nutrition but also increases the resource intensity of ag-
riculture (e.g. embodied energy, water, CO2 emissions) (FAO, 2013;
Wunderlich & Martinez, 2018). Depending on the amount of loss, the
capital cost of protected solar-dryer equipment could be equivalent to
lost crop value within a single or over multiple seasons (Fig. 1)
(Purohit et al., 2006). While solar dryers protect from rain, payback
based on avoidance of unpredictable, catastrophic risk is not guaranteed
and may be difficult to convince a smallholder buyer. In this
technoeconomic analysis, only consistent changes in quality and eco-
nomic value between open-sun and hoophouse drying techniques are
considered.
Revenue improvement with Hoophouse Tunnel Dryer (HTD)
This section translates improvements in chili quality due to the use
of a solar dryer into economic terms. Representative chili samples of
open-sun- and HTD-dried chilies are shown in Fig. 4. The HTD chilies re-
ceived a 22% higher normalized price (hereto referred to as “the price”)
than open-sun dried chilies in a blind A/B market test due to a larger
composition of higher quality and price based on color and texture
(Table 3).
Further, laboratory tests showed a 6% increase in capsaicin and a 26%
increase in color value (ASTA Units) for HTD- over open-sun dried chil-
ies. Other studies have suggested a 20% price improvement is common
with other dried produce (Janjai et al., 2011), but variation can be ex-
pected as explored in a sensitivity analysis later.

Fig. 3. Open-sun Drying Chili Wastage. The distribution of reported chili harvest wastage
during the drying process reported by farmers (n = 60 farmers, 12 villages, 2 districts);
78% of farmers reported (early 2019) that the reasons for losses were related to rain and
moisture. These complete losses are distinct from the quality degradation shown in Fig.
2, which considered chilies brought to market versus those discarded at the farm.
Fig. 4. Representative dried Byadagi chilies from the same farmer's harvest in Karnataka
comparing traditional open-sun drying (100 kg) and an HTD solar dryer (100 kg), showing
quality improvement of the solar dryer by a larger presence of a uniform dark red color
versus increased whitening by fungus in the open-sun drying sample.

22
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al. Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28

Table 3 • up-time: number of days and months per year when the dryer is in ac-
Market price and composition of different qualities for traditional open-sun dried Byadagi tive operation,
chilies and those dried in an HTD. Open-sun drying produced a larger composition of
lower quality chilies and the price of its highest quality chilies were lower than those dried
• size and productivity of a farmer's plot,
by an HTD. The market prices were normalized by composition ratio of qualities to obtain • change in revenue with dryer use relative to conventional open-sun
an overall price per kg. drying, and
• capital and maintenance costs of the dryer.
Open-Sun HTD

Higher Quality Price $2.01 kg−1 $2.17 kg−1

Lower Quality Price $1.37 kg−1 $1.37 kg−1
Percentage Higher Quality 45% 83% The remainder of Section 3.3 examines these factors for the out-of-
Percentage Lower Quality 55% 17% pocket purchase of an HTD by smallholder farmers, with additional dis-
Composition-normalized Price $1.66 kg−1 $2.03 kg−1 cussion in Sections S3.3–3.4 of the supplementary material. Section 3.4
Capsaicin (Scoville Heat Units) 6300 6700
introduces service-based operation models without capital expenses for
ASTA Color Value 218 276
smallholder farmers.

Net Present Value, payback and income parity times

To generalize the potential economic effects of quality improvement Fig. 6a shows the ratio of the Net Present Value (NPVratio) of an
on the average chili price, historic market data was assessed. Be- HTD-1000 (i.e. 1000-kg drying capacity) relative to the NPV of
tween 2015 and 2020 the daily-average modal dried chili price was open-sun drying for a productive Karnataka smallholder farmer
$1.19 kg−1 (₹83 kg−1) across all varieties and markets in Karnataka over an assumed 10-year HTD lifetime as a function both of HTD
(Fig. 5a), with a 90% confidence interval spanning $0.62–$2.12 kg−1 in economic value addition and of discount rate. The NPV ratio is
nominal dollars (ReMS, 2020). Based on this average, a 22% increase in defined as.
market price translated to a 30% to 200% increase in net income, de-
pending on the reported farmer production costs (Fig. 5b, Supplemen- 10
NI
tary Section S3) (Jagtap et al., 2012; Rajur et al., 2008). This result ∑ ð1þd
y,HTD
Þy
y¼0
shows that improved quality through protected solar drying carries sig- NPVratio ¼ ð1Þ
10
NIy,open−sun
nificant potential for improving incomes of smallholder farmers, rela- ∑ y
ð1þdÞ
tive to the baseline of open-sun drying. Next, a technoeconomic y¼0

model is constructed to verify whether this increase in revenue suffices

to justify ownership and use of solar dryers.
Economic analysis of individual ownership of solar dryers
This section develops a technoeconomic model for hoophouse solar
dryers owned by smallholder farmers that is informed by the results of
the surveys and market testing (Sections 3.1–3.2). When considering
the capital cost of solar-dryer equipment alongside its benefits, the
near impossibility of lucrative, individual HTD ownership by small-
holder farmers becomes apparent. Factors that significantly influence
whether a solar dryer is a profitable investment include:
• capacity: mass in kg of fresh product for drying,
• turnover rate: number of days until produce is dried and more fresh
produce can be added,
where NIy represents the yearly net income in year, y, and d is the
discount rate. Here, discount rates signify the time value of money and
can represent the interest on equipment loans or how a person values
present versus future investments. Discount rates can be relatively
high in developing countries, where Pender reported rates well above
20% in India (Pender, 1996).
Any NPVratio above unity in Fig. 6a suggests that the HTD will be
more profitable than open-sun drying after 10 years. Values between
0 and 1 show that open-sun drying is more profitable, and any value
below 0 implies that investing in the HTD will be unprofitable. For
example, the NPV ratio at a modest 10% discount rate and a 22% rev-
enue increase gives a value of 1.1, suggesting a favorable lifetime in-
vestment. However, Fig. 6b reveals that capital-expense payback
occurs in the second year of use, and income parity with open-sun
drying takes nearly 7 years. These long timeframes are strong

Fig. 5. Historic Dried Chili Prices and Farmer Income Improvement. (a) The reported daily modal dried chili market prices (n = 6,616,391: each kg represented) for all red chili varieties at
Karnataka wholesale markets from 2015 to 20 (nominal dollars) with data from Rashtriya e-Market Services (ReMS) (ReMS, 2020). (b) The percentage net-income change for a small-
holder farmer after experiencing a 22% price improvement as a function of open-sun dried chili price and of production cost per hectare of chili production; nominal $1 = ₹70; a 22%
increase in the average chili price converts to a 30–200% increase in net income based on the average dried chili price between 2015 and 2020.

23
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al.
Fig. 6. Net Present Value of and Net Income of Solar Drying. The NPVratio representing the value addition of an HDT relative to open-sun drying for the average Karnataka smallholder
farmer (0.74-ha farm size) after 10 years using an (a) HTD-1000 for producing 4000 kg of dried chili per year as compared to traditional open-sun drying of the same amount; values
above 1 show HTD investment is profitable, between 0 and 1 that open-sun drying is more profitable, and below 0 that an HTD will never be profitable; (b) the cumulative net income
of different drying scenarios with a 22% price revenue improvement by HTD-500 or HTD-1000 usage at a 10% discount rate; with payback of HTD capital expenses in under 1–2 years,
net income parity is not reached for 3–7 years for an HTD compared to open-sun drying.
detractors for farmers with little disposable income. A smaller HTD
and its lower capital cost could make more sense in this scenario.
With a 500-kg capacity and under the same variable conditions, the
NPV ratio of an HTD-500 is 1.6 with a payback of 1 year and parity
achieved in less than 3 years. While more financially favorable, the
operational challenges become more concerning. A faster turnover
rate is required to accommodate the entire harvest, which may not
be technologically feasible as discussed further in Section S4.1 of
the supplementary. Furthermore, farmers cannot, in general, be ex-
pected to modify their harvesting patterns to accommodate a partic-
ular volume of a dryer, though this is explored in Section S2.
Practical limitations of HTD Adoption
For the average smallholder farmer in Karnataka with 43% lower
dried chili yield than 4000 kg ha−1 considered in the simple analysis
represented in Fig. 6, an even smaller HTD might be required. How-
ever, the capital cost of equipment does not scale down linearly
with capacity. Instead, fixed manufacturing, operational, and instal-
lation costs often constrain smaller HTDs to a higher per-kg capital
cost than larger ones due to economies of scale. In addition to these
challenges in drying, smallholder farmers are generally risk-averse,
have little disposable income, limited access to credit, or difficulty
accessing extension services and subsidies. In 2012–13, 49% of all
smallholder farmers were in debt at 56% their yearly income,
whereas 70% of larger farmers reported being in debt but at 46%
their yearly income (Government of India, 2018). Further, only 33%
of smallholders reported accessing institutional credit compared to
49% of larger farmers (Government of India, 2018). While solar
dryers may yield a profitable investment over a 10-year lifetime
with an idealized, high (90%) utilization rate as shown in Fig. 6a,
the capital expense, slow payback, lack of awareness, and invest-
ment risk inhibit sales and adoption by smallholders. Overall, this
data-driven technoeconomic analysis highlights the gap between
available technology, its intended use, and its practical adoption po-
tential.
Adoption opportunities for solar dryers and multi-use infrastructure
Considering the above, it is unlikely that smallholders would pur-
chase an HTD for personal farm-scale crop drying. In this section, two
24
Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28
alternative field-tested strategies and innovations to bring drying tech-
nology to smallholders are introduced and evaluated: (1) a service-
based HTD business model to attract better capitalized buyers, and
(2) a dual-use HTD (duHTD) operational model to extend utilization
into multiple agricultural seasons by growing seedlings when drying
is not needed.
Service-based operational models
Lease and service business models have become popular in recent
years as a means to extend technology access to smallholder farming
populations (Sengupta et al., 2019). Shifting the financial requirements
of owning and operating an HTD from end-user smallholder farmers to
stakeholders with improved liquidity can produce potential win-win
scenarios. This study introduces a Drying-as-a-Service (DaaS) business
model, in which a farmer pays a service fee to the owner and operator
for drying fresh chilies in an HTD (Fig. S5) in exchange for improved
product quality and faster drying. DaaS was observed for open-sun dry-
ing of areca nuts within a Farmer Producer Organization in Karnataka.
Importantly, the concept of a fee is not novel: many farmers already
pay for drying through hiring labor support. To achieve a net-zero in-
come change for a farmer, the magnitude of a DaaS fee would equal
the traditional cost of open-sun drying of chilies, plus the increase in
chili economic value from HTD use. The operational and labor costs of
open-sun chili drying are $0.020 ± 0.017 kg−1 (or ₹1.4 ± 1.2 kg−1) of
fresh chili to be dried (Supplementary Section S2). The value addition
provided by HTD use over open-sun amounts to $0.087 kg−1 of fresh
chilies (Section 3.2), where fresh chilies are typically 3 times their dry
weight. Therefore, solar drying with a service fee below the average of
$0.107 kg−1 (₹7.5 kg−1) of fresh chilies is expected to be profitable to
some fraction of end-user smallholder farmers – and requires no capital
expenditure on their part. The subsequent analysis considers only DaaS
fees below $0.107 kg−1 (₹7.5 kg−1) of fresh chilies. However, protec-
tion from climate risk and the possible added convenience could pro-
vide additional incentive for farmers to pay a premium.
Ultimately, both the HTD owner and farmer service-user must finan-
cially benefit. For the owner, the DaaS revenue needs to cover operation
and maintenance costs, to pay back the initial investment in a reason-
able time period, and to turn a profit as quickly as possible. This study
assumes that an owner is only interested in the capital and operational
cost payback period, and the time value of money is ignored. To explore
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al. Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28

the economic issues surrounding the owner, four approaches are con-
sidered combinatorially: integrating multi-seasonal use of the HTD, fi-
nancing with a bank loan, availing government subsidies, and scaling
the HTD equipment to a larger size.
Multi-seasonal use
Unless an HTD is positioned in a location with rotating crops that re-
quire drying year-round, as proposed by Janjai et al. in the Lao P.D.R
(Janjai et al., 2011), there may be limited harvest and drying seasons
for its use. This is the case considered for dried chilies in India. The
chili harvest and drying season typically runs in a 3-month window
from late November or December through February or March and are
location and water-source dependent.
Here, a dual-use hoophouse tunnel dryer (duHTD) that can switch be-
tween drying chilies and growing seedlings is evaluated. The combination
of DaaS during drying season and Nursery-as-a-Service (NaaS) during the
monsoon growing season known as kharif are explored as a multi-
seasonal, duHTD business model (Fig. S5). A duHTD running a service
business model would generate revenue from both seedling sales and
drying fees based on the weight of the produce to be dried. This adapta-
tion to multi-seasonal use is feasible as HTDs and greenhouses used for
growing have a similar structural design (Tiwari, 2003). Such
functionality has been proposed previously and tested successfully in
the USA for tobacco curing and tobacco seedling growth in the 1980s
(Condorí et al., 2001; Huang & Bowers, 1986). In India, seedling nurseries
already exist, and farmers are familiar with them or already pay for seed-
lings, though not all participate. A seedling transplant is recommended for
a number of high-value crops, e.g. chili, capsicum, tomato, eggplant, cau-
liflower, and onion (AllThatGrows, 2021; Annadata, 2021).
HTD and duHTD payback period
Using a service-based business model, the hypothetical payback pe-
riod to an owner of an HTD-2000 (2000-kg drying capacity) and
duHTD-2000 with 3 seedling growing cycles (abbreviated 3G) in the
nursery-use season is compared under different financing scenarios.
Fig. 7a,b shows examples of how the payback period for out-of-pocket
and subsidy-plus-bank loan scenarios vary as a function of turnover
rate and DaaS charge. These independent variables help shed light on
how fast a solar dryer needs to dry produce and how much to charge
per dried product to reach payback in a certain number of years. Regions
in gray indicate that payback is impossible, whereas those in white
show a highly undesirable payback period above 10 years. The financing
scenarios include: out-of-pocket (i.e. full upfront capital cost), bank loan
(i.e. 10.5% APR over a 5-year loan with a 20% down payment), subsidy

Fig. 7. Economic Payback unnder Multi-Use, Service-Based Operation. The payback period contours in years of (a) HTD-2000 and (b) duHTD-2000 under different financing scenarios
showing lower relative payback times for duHTD-2000. The shaded gray area means payback is impossible. (c) Estimated payback time (years) for HTD-2000 and duHTD-2000 at a 6-
day turnover rate and a DaaS fee of $0.054 kg−1 (₹3.75 kg−1) of chilies to be dried; 1G, 3G, and 5G indicate 1,3, and 5 NaaS growing cycles per year. (d) The estimated payback time in
years for the ½-acre scale HTD-½Ac and duHTD-½Ac. The financing scenarios include: out-of-pocket (i.e. full upfront capital cost), bank loan (i.e. 10.5% APR over a 5-year loan with a
20% down payment), subsidy (i.e. 50% of the upfront cost), and subsidy-plus-bank loan (i.e. bank loan on 50% of the upfront cost); for each of the respective financing scenarios, payback
was considered achieved after payment of the: full upfront cost, 20% down payment, 50% full upfront cost, 20% down payment of 50% full upfront cost.

25
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al.
(i.e. 50% of the upfront cost), and subsidy-plus-bank loan (i.e. a bank
loan on 50% of the upfront cost). For each of the respective financing
scenarios, payback was considered achieved after payment of the: full
upfront cost, 20% down payment, 50% full upfront cost, 20% down pay-
ment after the 50% full upfront cost. Additional discussion for calcula-
tions and assumptions in this section can be found in supplementary
Section S6.
Dual use decreases payback time. For comparison, the four financing sce-
narios: out-of-pocket, bank loan, subsidy, and subsidy-plus-bank loan
are assessed at a reasonable drying turnover of 6 days (Section S4.1)
(Kaewkiew et al., 2012). Additionally, a DaaS charge of $0.054 kg−1
(₹3.75 kg−1) of fresh chili is assumed, or 50% of the maximum economic
value addition from HTD use assessed in Section 3.4.1. The rest of the
value goes to a farmer-user. For a drying-only HTD-2000, the out-of-
pocket payback period is 11 years (Fig. 7c). For a duHTD-2000 (3G),
the out-of-pocket payback period decreases by more than 50% to 5
years because of the additional revenue stream from growing seedlings.
While financing with a bank loan decreases the HTD-2000 payback
period at higher turnover rates (i.e. faster drying times) and higher
DaaS charges (Fig. S6), there is a greater sensitivity to longer turnover
times and lower drying charges. The added interest payments of a
bank loan result in a longer payback period at 12 years than paying
out-of-pocket. Utilizing a 50% subsidy markedly decreases payback to
5.6 years, while including a bank loan with subsidy increases that pay-
back time to 6.5 years. All of these long payback periods are unlikely
to be favorable to a would-be owner.
For a duHTD-2000 (3G) with bank financing, the 20% down payment
is not paid back during the 5-year lifetime of the loan. However, with a
subsidy, payback decreases to 2.5 years. With the addition of a bank
loan, payback decreases further to only 1 year versus 6.5 years for a
drying-only HTD. These results suggest that under specific financing ar-
rangements, a well-utilized duHTD-2000 could be a profitable invest-
ment for an owner while also benefiting farmer end-users.
Operational flexibility from increased size
Despite the promise of multi-seasonal use, multi-use service-based
operational models carry significant risk and substantial sensitivity to
drying service pricing, turnover days based on weather or dryer effi-
ciency, and nursery utilization. Further, a duHTD-2000 operating at
90% uptime with a 6-day turnover can only dry 2.3–5.3 ha of chilies in
a 3-month period, limiting multi-farmer participation. Increasing the
size of an HTD or duHTD can improve operational capacity, such as co-
ordinating multiple farmers' needs at once, absorbing variable uptime
and capacity utilization, or service fee variation for different products.
Fig. 7b shows the hypothetical payback of both scenarios at a ½-acre
size (HTD-½Ac and duHTD-½Ac), which can accommodate ~36,000 kg
of fresh chili for drying.
At this size, the out-of-pocket payback period for drying-only use de-
creases from 11 to 5.7 years. Acquiring a 50% subsidy in concert with a
bank loan, the payback period is reduced to 1.4 years. In contrast, for a
duHTD-½Ac (3G), the out-of-pocket payback period is 3.1 years, and
1.7 years with a bank loan. Utilizing only a 50% subsidy accelerates pay-
back further to 1.5 years, and with the addition of a loan, payback is
reached in only 0.45 years. With these lower payback periods comes sig-
nificant operational flexibility with respect to turnover rates and service
fees (Fig. S7).
Adoption implications via government aid and financing
Even with existing government support schemes, successful adop-
tion of duHTDs is not guaranteed. For example, many of the financial
support scheme subsidies offered by the government are given retroac-
tively, meaning after a project has been completed and may take many
months or over a year to receive (NHM, 2020). To obtain a 50% subsidy
for a (du)HTD, an owner would first need to pay out-of-pocket or obtain
a loan to pay full price for the equipment. Here (Fig. 7), a subsidy was
26
Energy for Sustainable Development 68 (2022) 18–28
assumed to be received prior to obtaining a loan, i.e. only half of the cap-
ital cost of the equipment minus a 20% down payment was financed by a
bank. The former scenario, however, may be beneficial in that it could
provide significant cash with which to run more capital-intensive oper-
ations such as buying fresh chilies, drying, and selling independent of
farmers or paying for seedling-growing inputs in bulk. However, for
less capitalized buyers, the retroactive subsidy mechanism could be a
large financial deterrent and should be considered in policy and subsidy
scheme implementation or private sector-supported financing and
cost-sharing. Service-based operation of agricultural equipment and in-
frastructure deserves further study.
Outlook and emerging opportunities
Accelerating global demand for dried chilies and other dried prod-
ucts provides an economic opportunity for smallholder farmers to cap-
ture more economic value by accessing the growing export market.
Compared to the average chili value of $0.95 kg−1 in Karnataka whole-
sale markets in 2018–2019, the average export value was nearly double
at $1.85 kg−1 (CommTrade, 2020). Export of dried chilies from India has
experienced a compound annual growth rate of 7.3% by weight and 8.1%
by economic value between 2015 and 19 (ITC, 2020). In 2019, the dried
chili export value totaled $850 million in India and $2.1 billion globally
(CommTrade, 2020; ITC, 2020). Demand is expected to continue with
research extolling the health benefits of chilies and their unique flavor
(Chopan & Littenberg, 2017; Olatunji & Afolayan, 2018; Saleh et al.,
2018). However, export requires high-quality chilies assessed by strin-
gent testing requirements. Improved solar dryers can support this
growing market and enable smallholder farmers to participate and ben-
efit from premium prices.
At the same time, climate change and changing monsoon rain pat-
terns have already depressed chili yields in some areas and may worsen
over time (Saxena et al., 2016). Protected solar drying and multi-
seasonal uses in growing could play an important role in adapting to
climate-change challenges. While this paper focused on dried chilies,
many other crops and spices require some level of drying (Fig. 1). De-
pending on turnover rate and service fee structure, lower-value prod-
ucts like paddy and maize may not increase in quality value enough
through solar drying to justify certain service fees, but could be paired
with other products and contribute to optimal utilization of equipment.
An analysis would be required on a case-by-case basis and for certain
crop varieties. This paper provides a framework for that evaluation.
Conclusion
This study builds on the efforts to design affordable solar drying sys-
tems for agricultural communities worldwide. Using the example of
commercialized hoophouse tunnel dryers and dried chili farming in
India, it shows that the revenues which make drying technology profit-
able come from improvements in product quality rather than from in-
creases in harvest volumes alone. While quality degradation from
open-sun drying reduces estimated dried chili revenue by 34%,
protected solar drying by an HTD increases chili revenue by 22%. The
impact of product quality on income is particularly significant. Based
on technoeconomic results, current drying technology remains unaf-
fordable without multi-season use for plot-scale drying sizes, especially
for cash-constrained populations. This study highlights the inefficiency
of allocating capital to technologies that provide sparse or single-
season use. Market conditions and operational efficiency play a critical
role in technology adoption. This work offers a precise, data-driven
method of assessing them. Finally, service-based models which gener-
ate revenue year-round are shown to enable profitable adoption of
technology for rural, agricultural communities. Such models overcome
both capital and efficiency bottlenecks, and offer a path toward adop-
tion at scale.
M.L. Machala, F.L. Tan, A. Poletayev et al.
The results and approach from this work are generalizable to many
locations, solar dryers, and dried products. By introducing multi-
seasonal use and serviced-based business models with appropriate fi-
nancing options, the adoption rate of solar dryers could be significantly
increased. This systems-level approach considers technical, financial,
and operational factors in order to provide year-round benefits and
technology access to smallholder agricultural communities worldwide.
Ethics and participant consent
The study received ethical clearance from Stanford University's
Internal Review Board (protocol IRB-43815). The identity of villages
and participants has been anonymized to maintain confidentiality.
Data availability
Additional data beyond what is provided in the Supplementary can
be shared upon reasonable request.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Michael L. Machala: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal anal-
ysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project adminis-
tration, Writing – original draft, Supervision, Writing – review &
editing. Frederick L. Tan: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal
analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Writing – review & editing.
Andrey Poletayev: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Funding acquisition, Writing – review & editing. Mohammad I. Khan:
Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Resources,
Writing – review & editing. Sally M. Benson: Conceptualization,
Funding acquisition, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review &
editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
Mahammad Halageri, Sairam Baddi, Sandeep Amatigoudra, Bhakshi
Nadaf, and Dr. Maheshwar Yalagi supported field surveys. Rushil
Prakash supported and edited survey questions. Annie Baldwin helped
conceptualize the technoeconomic model. We thank Jeff Wood and
Shoshanah Cohen for their support since this project started and for
continued guidance and resource access. Funding: Stanford Precourt In-
stitute for Energy, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment: Real-
izing Environmental Innovation Program, the Stanford TomKat Center
for Sustainable Energy: Innovation Transfer Grant, the Stanford Haas
Center for Public Service, and the Deshpande Foundation.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.esd.2022.02.001.
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