# Estimation of the Energy Consumption of the Rice and Corn Drying Process in the Equatorial Zone
## 1 Introduction
### Rice Processing Plant  
From the section previously analysed, we proceed to investigate the number of rice processing plants (called \"Piladoras\") located in the province of Guayas and its area of operation and the yellow corn collection centres located in the Los Rios province. The information from the census was carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAGAP) in 2018. It is essential to clarify that rice processing plants and corn collection centres have dryers as the first step of the production process.  
The MAGAP census establishes 581 rice processing plants in the Guayas province, categorized among large, medium, and small. This categorization is granted based on the production of quintals/hour(h) of drying; for a greater understanding in this work, it is express in kg/h. In the case of large rice processing plants (considered as the first category), their production would be around 2045-11,000 kg/h, medium (second category) between 1136 and 1800 kg/h, and small (third category) between 227 to 900 kg/h [24; 25; 26]. Figure 2a shows statistical data on the number of rice processing plants by production size. As can be seen, 65% correspond to small production plants, indicating that the technology used in this sector, especially the dryers, is handcrafted. This information visualizes in Figure 2b, where the classification of rice processing plants by type of technology is presented, showing that 58% of the plants use artisan-built equipment.  
Figure 1: Production metric tons (Mt) (a) rice, (b) corn. INEC, 2018.  
Figure 2: _Cont_.  
In order to reach a greater reduction of the sample, we review the information on the areas with the highest concentration of rice processing plants in the province of Guayas. Locating those in Daule, Salitre, and Santa Lucia cantons, corresponding to 90, 87, and 54 rice processing plants respectively (Figure 3). With a population size of 231 rice processing plants, the sample is determined from this using the sample size formula through the respective statistical method, with a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 5%; therefore, the sample reduces to 68 rice processing plants.  
Continuing with the analysis, we review information registered with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAGAP) about the rice processing plants which have drying equipment. According to that information, small rice processing plants, considered as a third category, use \"tendales\" (open space to spread food to be dried naturally \"sun-dried\") for drying the rice.  
Figure 4 shows the number of rice processing plants per category that use these two drying processes: natural or artificial (dryers). For this research we will evaluate the second and third categories of rice processing plants energy consumption, since they mostly have artisan-built equipment.  
Figure 3: Rice processing plants in the cantons of Guayas province. Fuente. Geoportal MAGAP, 2018.  
Figure 2: (**a**) Classification of rice processing plants by production size, (**b**) type of technology. Data from MAGAP, 2018.