Fish farming business at Tungyao village requires a heavily used of aerators to increase the
amount of oxygen level in water to the suitable point where fish can be optimally grown. As a result,
fish farmers suffer from a high electricity bill. This work aims to study the performance of the PV
system which is part of the hybrid load sharing system. The electrical energy from the PV system is
combined with that from the utility grid using a particular inverter that can select the source of energy
for the aerator system. During the daytime, aerator system mainly relies on the energy from the PV
system. If the energy from solar PV is not enough, the inverter extracts the surplus energy from the
utility grid in order to maintain the power level for the aerator system. From the testing, it was found
that the energy production from the PV system provided about 30.95% of the total energy required by the aerator system during the overcast days (average solar intensity < 350 W/m2). On the clear sky (average solar intensity > 350 W/m2), however, the energy production from the PV system can replace the energy utilization from the utility grid for 56.67%. During the testing period, the panel system exhibited the average conversion efficiency and performance of 15% and 96.6%, respectively. Our study has demonstrated that the hybrid load sharing system can significantly lower the electricity bill especially on the sunny day.
Keywords
Hybrid load sharing system, Solar PV system, Aerator, Performance, Efficiency.