Experimental Validation of a Low-Energy-Consumption Heating Model for Recirculating Aquaponic Systems

Anh Tuan Le, Liang Wang, Yang Wang, Ngoc Tuan Vu and Daoliang Li
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Anh Tuan Le: National Innovation Center for Digital Fishery, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Liang Wang: National Innovation Center for Digital Fishery, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Yang Wang: National Innovation Center for Digital Fishery, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Ngoc Tuan Vu: College of Information and Electrical Engineering, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China
Daoliang Li: National Innovation Center for Digital Fishery, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100083, China

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 8, 1-20

Abstract: Electrical energy is the highest energetic cost in recirculation aquaponic systems (RASs), especially for fish-tank water. Therefore, reducing energy consumption is one of the challenges in developing RAS models. In this study, eleven experimental setups, based on numerical models from an earlier investigator, were built to investigate. Among them, three additional cases (cases 9–11) investigated the transient discharging energy efficiency of thermal energy storage (TES). Cases 9–11 considered three temperature levels, namely, 65–75 °C, 71–81 °C, and 81–87 °C, with a mass flow rate of 0.166 kg/s. The results show that when heating 3.4 m 3 of fish tank water from 24.5 °C to 28 °C, the average temperature error of the tank water was between 1.2% and 3.4%. The difference in the heat transfer rate was within ±4.2%. The error in the thermal efficiency was below 8.0%. The error range of the total required thermal energy was from 6.4% to 11.5%. Cases 9–11 used 5.6%, 6.4%, and 7.2% of the thermal energy of the TES tank, respectively. The electrical energy consumption was low compared to the thermal energy of the fish tank water received from the TES unit. Therefore, the proposed low-energy-consumption heating method can replace electric heaters.

Keywords: recirculating aquaponic system; helically coiled heat exchangers; thermal energy storage; water heating; renewable energy sources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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