Energy consumption performance analysis of electrical mitad at Mekelle City

Abstract

The Injera baking electrical mitad is the most energy-consuming device in every household in Ethiopia. This research presents a detail engineering study on the energy-consumption performance of existing electrical mitad in Mekelle city. The research work considered thirty-one electrical mitad from different workshops in Mekelle. Depending on the number of clay used, there are three types of electrical mitad; the single clay, the double clay and the rotating type mitad. In this research, it was found out that the average power consumption of existing mitad is in the range of 3.5 KW to 3.9 KW. The specific average baking energy is 0.82, 0.73 and 0.54 kWh/kg of injera for double clay, single clay and rotating type mitad respectively while the thermal efficiency by considering baking of 6kg of Injera on each mitad is 38%, 47% and 61% respectively. In all designs, the baking temperature is in the range of 130-140 ⁰C. Although the rotating type mitad is more energy efficient, it has technical limitations. Due to that, the single and the double clay mitad are widely used by households hence share all the market penetration of injera baking electrical mitad. These commonly used electrical mitad have an energy loss from 50-60% of the input energy.