Abstract: In Indiamost rural people still use hand milling methods to prepare their daily food.This takes a lot of time and is an arduous work mainly carried out by women andchildren. Therefore the introduction of motorized mills can improve theirliving conditions. However, typical diesel-driven mills have a capacity of 25to 1,800 kg of grain per hour. Therefore a new PV-driven stone mill with amillstone-diameter of 450 mm and a maximum capacity of 3 kg per hour wasconstructed and optimized. By optimizing the design and operation of the millthe maximum power requirement could be reduced to less than 100 W. Using two 50Wp PV-panels and a battery of 85 Ah, 35-60 kg of grain can be processed per dayat a global radiation of 4-6 kWh/m². This paper describes the influence of thetype of grain, the moisture content, the rotational speed of the millstone, themillstone gap and the feed rate on the driving torque and the power requirementof the mill.
Keywords- PV, Milling, Stone Mill, Solar Power, Grain, Food.