A paddle wheel aerator powered by independent solar power system.

Aquatic animals have been long time as a source of nutrition. Because human population grows, the demand of aquatic food also grows. It results in wild stock of aquatic animals is depleted and becomes insufficient to supply people's demand. Due to this reason, aquaculture farms are developed and grow. The water of aquaculture pond must be unpolluted and sufficient concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO). Oxygen is available for free in the atmosphere, but it requires a tool, aerator, to dissolve oxygen in the atmosphere into water efficiently. In Indonesia, mechanical paddle wheel aerator is popularly used. A paddle wheel aerator requires electricity to turn the electric motor, then the blades. A lot of aquaculture farms are in remote areas where electricity grid is minimum or even unavailable. In this paper, a concept of individual net zero-energy paddle wheel aerator is proposed. It had been tested 800-Wp solar PV system is able to supply enough electricity to run the aerator with 0.75 HP AC motor. The concept of small package solar PV system for individual aerator makes the system simple and the user can develop the solar PV system for whole facilities gradually depending on the need and available capital. Since the supply of solar energy is intermittent, battery system is necessary to smooth the electricity supply and to provide reference voltage. The research also found that the aerator with 8 blades and 16 holes per blade results in effective DO enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]