Aquacultural Engineering 2 (1983) 233-245

Aquacultural Ponds as Energy Storage and Waste Recycling Systems* F.W. Wheaton
Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA

T. B. Lawson
Agricultural Engineering Department, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA

R. B. Brinsfield and M. Yaramanoglu

Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, USA
ABSTRACT Considerable research has been done in an attempt to utilize solar energy to improve the productivity o f aquatic culture systems. A t the same time solar energy research has identified energy storage as a problem in commercializing the use o f solar energy for heating attd other purposes. Thus, a system is proposed to combine aquaeultural production jacilities and solar energy storage with the possibility o f later combining recycling o f agricultural wastes into the combined system. System feasibi#O, is being explored by use o f mathematical simulation models. Six model components on interaeting models are briefly outlined and progress on detailed model development is described. A model capable o f predicting the hourly solar energy available at any point on the earth's surface for which cloud cover, clearness number and latitude are known, is described. Example model output is presented and compared to measured data.

INTRODUCTION Ecological aquaculture (aquaculture p r o d u c t i o n making use o f waste products from ot her systems as food sources) has been advanced as a *Scientific article number A-3351, contribution number 6423 of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station (Department of Agricultural Engineering). 233 Aquacultural Engineering 0144-8609/83/$03.00 Applied Science Publishers Ltd, England, 1983. Printed in Great Britain

234

F. W. Wheaton, 1". B. Lawson, R. B. Brinsfield, M. Yaramanoglu

highly energy efficient and environmentally sound production system. Previous research has focused on the use of agricultural wastes (Buck et al., 1978; Schroeder, 1975) or domestic sewage (Ott, 1975, Mann and Taylor, 1981) as food for aquatic crops. Relatively limited research effort has focused on the energy exchange characteristics of solar driven aquaculture systems other than natural ecosystems. Solar energy research has concentrated on energy absorption by various man-made collectors to collect energy. Because solar energy is intermittent, being unavailable at night and in limited supply on cloudy days, solar energy systems must incorporate an energy storage device. Most solar systems utilize either water or rock for energy storage. Solar energy storages are generally bulky and relatively expensive per unit of energy stored. Aquaculture systems require rather large amounts of water which, with careful design, may also be usable for solar energy storage. Combining solar energy storage and aquaculture production systems could have several advantages. Efforts are now underway to develop mathematical models which can be used to determine the feasibility of combining aquacultural production, solar energy storage and recycling of agricultural wastes as food for the aquatic crop. This paper will describe the conceptual basis of the research and detail the model development progress.

THE CONCEPT The concept evolved from consideration of an energy independent farmstead. The system is envisioned as practical in situations where land is available and energy self-sufficiency is of interest. An existing farm which desires to develop sufficient solar energy storage capacity to provide a high percentage o f the stationary energy load, particularly heat load, from on-the-farm resources is one such situation. Typical energy loads would include space heating, grain drying and similar activities. It is not anticipated that the system outlined herein will meet any of the mobile energy demands of the farmstead, such as tractor or truck power. It is, however, possible for the proposed system to indirectly supply mobile energy. For example, preheating energy may be supplied to a still which is producing alcohol fuel for mobile equipment. Processes producing fuel from vegetable oils may also benefit from the addition of heat.

Aquacultural ponds as energy storage attd waste recycling systems AGRICULTURAL

SOLAR ENERGY WASTE

235

COVERED AQUACULTURAL PRODUCTION ANO ENERGY STORAGE POND

HEAT OUT (SPACE HEATING, GRAIN DRYING, ETC.)

INCREASED AQUACULTURAL PRODUCTION (FISH, PLANTS, SHELLFISH OR CRUSTACEANS)

FISH WASTE (FERTILIZER, ANIMAL FEED, ETC.)

Fig. I.

Schematic diagram of aquacultural energy storage pond system.

Figure 1 shows the general concept proposed. A pond covered with a transparent covering comprises the heart of the system. The pond absorbs solar energy which passes through the transparent covering, and some aquatic crop (i.e. warm water fish) will be grown in the pond. Energy will be extracted from the pond by heat pumps for various uses on the farmstead. Agricultural waste products may also be added to the pond as food for the aquatic crop. System inputs in this case will be solar energy and agricultural wastes. Outputs will include the aquatic crop (probably fish meat), fish waste and heat. The proposed system has several advantages among which are: (1) the same space could be used for two activities, aquaculture and energy storage, possibly reducing capital costs for b o t h activities,

236

F. W. Wheaton, T. B. Lawson, R. B. Brinsfield, M. Yaramanoglu

(2) aquaculture production could be enhanced due to the increased water temperature resulting from energy storage and by lengthening the growing season, (3) the size of the solar energy storage unit will be almost unlimited, (4) the income from the aquaculture production unit will help offset the cost of the solar energy storage unit. Obviously, the system is not utopia and has some disadvantages. Energy storage will be limited by the biological constraints of the aquacultural crop. The primary limit will be the maximum and minimum allowable temperatures and the maximum rate of temperature change. The difference between the maximum and minimum temperature and the pond volume will determine the total available energy storage, as in the following equation: Esm --- C p V ( T h - - TI)

(1)

where Esm = maximum allowable energy storage in the pond, C o = specific heat of water at constant pressure, V = pond volume, Th = maximum allowable pond temperature, Tl = minimum allowable pond temperature. The rate of temperature change in the pond will also be determined by biological constraints of the crop. The allowable rate of temperature change is species specific and thus must be adjusted for the crop. The maximum rate of temperature change, the pond volume and the specific heat of water will determine the amount of energy which can be extracted from the pond per unit of time. Although temperature will be the major aquaculture-energy storage conflict occurring within the pond, other problems will also occur. Oxygen limitations, waste solids concentrations and other factors will influence the aquaculture-energy storage constraints.

MODEL APPROACH The conceptual idea of combining aquaculture and solar energy storage is quite simple, but actually combining the two functions is not. Initial efforts are therefore concentrating on mathematically modeling the various system components. Six major model components are anticipated. The first model will predict solar energy available for any loca-

Aquacultural ponds as energy storage and waste recycling systems

237

tion on a time (hourly) basis. This model, the solar energy model, is presently completed and results are described below. The second model, the modified solar model, will include modifications to the solar energy available. This model will utilize the o u t p u t of the solar energy model as input, and will modify the available energy for pond covering transmission and pond reflection effects. The effects of night-time insulation of the greenhouse will also be included in this model. The modified solar model is presently under development. The third model c o m p o n e n t will consider the heat exchange taking place in the pond. Using the modified solar model output, this model, the heat balance model, will account for the heat losses from the pond. Heat loss to the soil, radiation to the sky, evaporation and other losses will be included in this model. The fourth major model will incorporate biological constraints hnposed on the system by the aquacultural crop. Temperature, oxygen, solids and ammonia concentrations, feeding needs and other biological constraints will be incorporated into this model component. The environmental constraints for each species will be stored within the model and used to limit the heat transfers and waste recycle models such that the environmental limitation of the aquatic crop are not exceeded. For example, if pond temperature starts to increase too rapidly or the water temperature approaches tolerable limits, the greenhouse will be covered or ventilated or the heat pump will be utilized to extract pond energy. The model must be programmed to handle these biological limits and correct the impending imbalance by techniques directly transferable to real systems. The fifth model, the energy extraction model, will quantify the energy extracted from the pond by the heat pump. When energy is required for use on the farmstead {e.g. for space heating), this model will determine the energy removed from the pond and adjust the pond temperature for the removal. The heat pump will be available for energy extraction until the pond temperature falls close to the lower tolerance limit of the aquatic crop. The biological constraint model will then limit use of the heat pump. The final model c o m p o n e n t will attempt to predict the effects of recycling agricultural wastes, such as animal manures or crop residues, into the pond as feed for the aquatic crop. This c o m p o n e n t is a difficult undertaking at best and cannot be done until the other parts of the model are operating and verified. Because of these problems, the waste

238

F. W. Wheaton, T. B. Lawson, R. B. Brinsfield, M. Yaramanoglu

recycling model will be developed only after the other components are verified. It is obvious that the various model components described above must eventually function as one model with several subparts. For example, predicting water temperature will require interactive calculation of the solar energy, modified solar energy, the heat balance, and the energy extraction models. Time dependent model interaction is one objective of the entire modeling effort. SOLAR E N E R G Y MODEL The conceptual framework and the major model components are described above. The first of the major models, the solar energy model, has been developed. The general model operation is described below and some outputs of the model are compared with existing data to give an indication of the model performance. The solar energy model (Brinsfield, 1981) utilized equations describing the geometrical relationship between the earth and sun to predict the solar energy available on a horizontal plane above the earth's atmosphere, the potential radiation. Using latitude as the only input parameter the model can predict the expected potential solar radiation for any earth location above the atmosphere on an hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Using clearness number (Imamura et al., 1976) the model adjusts the potential radiation for atmospheric interference. This adjustment enables the model to calculate the clear sky radiation for any location on the earth's surface for which clearness numbers are available. Cloud cover is a local phenomenon which strongly influences solar radiation availability. A second c o m p o n e n t of Brinsfield's ( 1981 ) model uses hourly cloud cover data, available for many US locations from the US Weather Service, to adjust clear sky radiation for the effects of cloud cover on energy availability. Unfortunately, hourly cloud cover data is not available for many areas, even in the US. Recent work by Yaramanoglu and Brinsfield (in preparation) has solved much of this problem. These researchers have shown that cloud cover data can be stochastically generated for any location using the beta distribution. The beta distribution parameters, p and q, are estimated using hourly cloud cover observations from the nearest weather station which

Aquacultural ponds as energy storage and waste recycling systems

239

collects cloud cover data. The beta function is then used to generate cloud cover for the desired location. Modifications of the Yaramanoglu and Brinsfield (in preparation) model using serial correlation techniques may make it usable in a simulation model such as the one proposed herein. Brinsfield's (1981) model can thus predict the hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly average or total solar energy available for any location for which latitude, clearness number and cloud cover data are available. Clearness numbers for all the US have been published by Immnura et al. (1976). Using regional cloud cover data and the beta function approach developed by Yaramanoglu and Brinsfield (in preparation), estimates of solar radiation for any location can be determined. Furthermore, solar energy availability at the earth's surface, and on a collector set at any till: angle above the horizontal, can be predicted by Brinsfield's t 1981 ) model. This predictive capability is available for any latitude. Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, etc. average and/or total solar energy values can be predicted. Figure 2 shows the daily average potential, clear sky and predicted (at the earth's surface) radiation for Salisbury, Maryland. Figure 2 was developed from o u t p u t of Brinsfield's ( 1981) model and is presented as a function of Julian day (i.e. day 1 is 1 January). The potential and clear sky radiation are smooth curves because potential radiation depends only on physical earth-sun relationship parameters. Clear sky radiation depends on the same parameters, but must be modified for absorption by atmospheric gases and dust. These parameters vary relatively slowly and in a highly predictable manner. The predicted radiation shows much greater short time variation because cloud cover, which is considered by the model, varies in a more random pattern and on a shorter (e.g. hourly) time scale. Figure 3 shows the weekly average observed and predicted (by Brinsfield's model) solar radiation for Salisbury, Maryland. The observed values are based on the average of weekly averages for the years 1974-1977. The calculated values were obtained using: (1 I hourly observed cloud cover as a model input, and (2) hourly cloud cover values generated by the beta distribution as a model input. Weekly average values were shown because daily or hourly values for a year made an unreadable graph. The trends exhibited by the three curves (Fig. 3) agree extremely well.

240

F. W. Wheaton, T. B. Lawson, R, B. Brinsfield, M, Yaramanoglu

-6

Z~

//
//
/ / /

,/~L_~
(1')

//

i" //
,)

/ /

/
e

/
17

f- I. I. m@m t-CtWWW
_ _

/ I \
\ \
\ \ \ \

lal . ~ m
I:: _ ~ or~ l_ O. o O k

i',
",

\.

tl

>-,

\\\
I 0 , I CO

"~
0 0 ~t 0 0 ~l e~

0 0 03

(~eo/s~oIOu~7)

a~qeITe^V

~O~au3

Aquacultural ponds as energy storage and waste recycling systems

241

(o

0 0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

0 0

(~O/s~a~6u~q)

~6dau3

~Ios

e6~J~^V

242

F. W. Wheaton, T. B. Lawson, R. B. Brinsfield, M. Yaramanoglu

MODIFIED SOLAR MODEL The solar energy model will provide the total hourly solar energy available on a horizontal plane at the earth's surface. The model does not provide data as to the spectral characteristics of the incoming energy. However, the solar spectrum is well known and is available in published literature. Figure 4 shows a typical solar spectral curve. The modified solar model must account for losses due to reflection by the pond surface and pond covering and absorption by the pond covering material. Thus, the model must first determine the energy flux at the pond cover surface, then account for the transmission spectrum of the covering, the energy absorption of the covering, the reflection of the covering as influenced by the covering material, as well as the geometry of the covering surface relative to the direction of the sun's rays. The spectral absorption of most greenhouse coverings is available in the literfiture. Figure 5 shows a typical transmission curve for a 3.18 mm thick acrylic covering. Figure 6 shows the effect of covering thickness on total energy transmission. Using data

c 0 i.

16 14
12 I0

i
o
('M

\
ADIATION

8 >(.9 nt~ Z bJ
z < < n-

6
4 2 0

.2

.4

.6

.8

1.0

12

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

WAVE

LENGTH

(MICRONS)

Fig. 4.

Energy available in the solar spectrum as a function of wavelength (Redfoot et al., 1979).

Aquacultural ponds as energy storage and waste rec)'cling systems

.~43

I00

Ts

lu td~ z qt
so
z

3.18mm A c r y l i c

n, ~- 25

0 .2 Fig. 5. .4

,6

.8

1,0 1,2 1.4 1,8 1.8 2.0 WAVE LENGTH (MICRONS)

2.2

2.4

The percent transmission of 3 " 1 8 m m thick acrylic plastic at various wavelengths (Redfoot et al., 1979).

100 ,q h, - - u 90
0

pLIrXIGLAS~G and K

(n4i I~" 8 0 !

-o-

60 0 Fig. 6.

6 8 I0 12 ACTUAl. THICKNESS (ram)

14

I6

The average solar transmission of Plexiglas G and K for various thickness (Rohn and Haas, 1979).

Plexiglas is a Registered Trade Mark of Rohn and Haas Co., Bristol, Pennsylvania.

244

F. W. Wheaton, T. B. Lawson, R. B. Brinsfield, M. Yaramanoglu

such as that given in Figures 4 through 6, energy transmission through various pond coverings can be determined and included in the model. Robbins and Spillman (1980) have also developed mathematical relationships to predict energy transmission through various greenhouse covers.

SUMMARY A concept has been presented which combines solar energy collection and storage with aquaculture production and possibly recycling of agricultural wastes through aquatic crops. Feasibility of the concept is being developed using mathematical models. The first model component, which provides hourly solar energy available at the earth's surface using only latitude, clearness number and cloud cover as input data, has been completed. A method of estimating cloud cover for sites lacking historical data is also noted. Other model components necessary to predict energy absorption and storage within constraints imposed by the aquaculture production system are also outlined.

REFERENCES Brinsfield, R. B. (1981). Predicting solar and wind energy using cloud cover and wind velocity. Unpublished dissertation, Agricultural Engineering Department, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. Buck, D. H., Baur, R. J. & Rose, C. R. (1978). Utilization of swine manure in a polyculture of Asian and North American fishes. Trans. Am. b~'sh. Soc., 107 (1), 216-22. lmamura, M. S., Hulstrom, R. & Cookson, C. (1976). Definition study for photovoltaic residential prototype system. US Department of Commerce Report No. N77-13533. Mann, R. & Taylor, R. E., Jr. (1981). Growth of the bay scallop, Argopecten irradians, in a waste recycling aquaculture system. Aquaculture, 24, 45-52. Ott, F. D. (1975). The effect of sewage effluents and their constituents upon the vegetative growth of Ulva lactuca (Linnaeus) 1753 (Sea Lettuce). Virginia Institute of Marine Science, second progress report to Hampton Roads Sanitation District Commission, Glouster Point, Virginia. Redfoot, H. L., Burkhardt, W. C. & Anson, B. D. (1979). Glazing solar collectors with acrylic and double walled polycarbonate plastics. Proc. Solar Glazing,

Aquacultural ponds as energy storage and waste recycling systems

245

1979 topical conference, 22-23 June, Stockton State College, Pomona, New Jersey. Robbins, F. V. & Spillman, C. K. (1980). Solar energy transmission through two transparent covers. Trans. Am. Soc. Agric. Eng., 23 (5), 1224-31. Rohn & Haas Company (1979). Solar Collector Glazing. Design Data PL-1336, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Schroeder, G. L. (1975). Some effects of stocking fish in waste treatment ponds.
Water Res., 9, 591-3.

Yaramanoglu, M. & Brinsfield, R. B. (In preparation.)Estimation of solar radiation using stochastically generated cloud cover data.