Majid Khanali - Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran
Ramin Abedi - MSc. Student, Department of Industrial Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Saveh, Iran;
Mahmoud Shahrokhi - Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran;
S.Hashem Mousavi-Avval - Ph.D. Student, Department of Agricultural Machinery Engineering, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran;

This study employs a data envelopment analysis approach to investigate the technical and scale efficiencies of apple fridges with respect to energy use preservation of products in Tehran province of Iran. The study also helps to identify the wasteful uses of energy by inefficient units and to establish the optimum level of energy from different inputs. Data used in this study were obtained from 18 apple fridges in Tehran province, Iran. The results revealed that, the total energy of 3056370 MJ/1000kg capacity was consumed for apple fridges and about 23% of apple fridges were found to be technically efficient and the technical, pure technical and scale efficiency scores of units were found to be 0.78, 0.86 and 0.90, respectively. The results also suggested that on average, a potential 583570 MJ/1000kg capacity (19.1%) reduction in total energy input could be achieved provided all units operated efficiently, assuming no other constraints on this adjustment.

Energy input, Apple fridge, Technical efficiency, DEA