Abstract
Food deserts have emerged in underserved urban and rural areas throughout the United States. Corner markets have filled the food voids, but generally without offering residents access to healthy food. The economics for doing so are prohibitive. The purpose of the study is to investigate an opportunity for reducing corner store energy costs in order to make possible retail of fresh produce and meat. Given the typical dominance of refrigeration to the energy cost in such stores, an integrated solar dehumidification system with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) is considered. A typical corner store baseline reliant upon conventional refrigeration and HVAC equipment is defined to serve as a basis for comparison. MATLAB Simulink dynamic models are developed for the posed system and baseline model. The results show energy reduction in the refrigerated cabinets of maximally 28%, 27%, and 20%, respectively, in Dayton, OH, Phoenix, AZ, and Pine Blu ff, AR. The respective HVAC energy savings are respectively 28%, 56%, and 4%. Collectively these correspond to total annual energy savings of 43%, 51%, and 53%, translating to annual energy cost savings of greater than $12K in all locations.