A Smart Solar Energy-Based Cooling System Design and Application for Sustainable Trout Farming in Keban Dam Lake

Abstract

Increasing temperatures of the water surface in the summer limits the number of aquaculture activities and the production in dam lakes located in the continental climate. Due to these adverse conditions, trout farming in fish cages in the Keban Dam Lake are interrupted from April to October, and trout farming is not sustainable between these months. This study is carried out to develop a cage model that allows for sustainable trout farming throughout the year in dam lakes. The temperature of the groundwater is approximately ten °C during the year at the Keban Dam Lake, so it is aimed to supply this cold water into the cage for cooling especially in summer months. In the study, a Photovoltaic (PV) system was designed to supply the systems’ required electrical power. A pump was used for taking cold water from the depth of the dam lake to cool the fish cage. All energy requirements of the system were supplied from designing solar energy-based PV system. The PV panels constituted on the fish cage, and temperature sensors were used to control the frequency of the motor driver for cooling the fish cage. Thanks to the developed system the temperature of the fish cage was fixed around 17 °C so that trout farming could be sustained from April to October during the year. The average water temperature was decreased to about 17-20 ° C with the proposed method. This application study is the first research on this subject, and it is crucial as its outputs put forward the problem clearly, and it will be an example study of future works on this subject.