Energy characterisation and savings opportunities in an aquaculture company

Abstract

Aquaculture is one of the activities with sustained growth over time that represents a source of income and food for many developing countries. However, these systems are energy-intensive and environmentally unsustainable. For this reason, the theoretical-experimental research carried out an energy characterisation of a company in the aquaculture sector in Cuba. To this end, a description of the energy-productive system was carried out to identify the areas and equipment with high energy consumption, with pumps, blowers and lighting (76.14 %) being the most significant. Energy indicators were established for the company under study. In the research, savings opportunities are proposed, through the design of a solar photovoltaic system using PVSyst software modelling, and it is determined that 68 % of the energy demand could be supplied by the solar photovoltaic system.