Alternatives in the use and control of the potential of slurry ponds
Program: Call for subsidies to support collaborative actions by actors in the agricultural sector, 2020.
Funding body: Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Environment of the Government of Aragon.
Start date: 2020 Finish date: 2023
Total budget: 150,000.00€
Description: The general objective of the project is to develop an innovative solution for covering slurry ponds that will reduce the emission of harmful gases, such as ammonia, and that will make it easier for farms and management centres to adapt to and comply with the parameters relating to emissions set by recent national and European regulations. In addition, the aim is to make use of these ponds for the production of electricity from renewable sources without having to allocate additional land areas, by means of floating elements that incorporate photovoltaic panels.
Beneficiary members of the collaboration group:
- Tauste Centro Gestor de Estiércoles S.L. (TAUSTE CGE)
- Agrupación de Defensa Sanitaria de Porcino Nº 1 de Tauste (ADS TAUSTE)
- Intergia Energía Sostenible S.L. (INTERGIA)
Project updates
During the month of November, the assembly of the demonstration prototype of the project was carried out on the slurry pond of the Mampel Ansó pig farm, in the municipality of Tauste.
This is a 20.7 kWp photovoltaic system, with inverter power of 20 kW. It has 46 photovoltaic panels placed on support floats.
The system will be capable of producing a theoretical annual PV generation of up to 34,378 kWh.
INTERGIA presented the project and the actions developed so far in the III Conference on Innovation in the pig sector, organised by Inneara (Esmedagro) and A.D.S. Porcino Nº1 de Tauste, held at its headquarters in this town.
These conferences act as a meeting point for the transmission of knowledge between the different agents involved in the sector and pig farming professionals.
More than 40 professionals from the pig sector attended these information days.
The first experiment of the project has been carried out. It aimed at evaluating the buoyancy of the elements of the pond covering system and their interaction with each other: photovoltaic panel support floats, perimeter corridor floats and hexagonal elements to cover the free gaps between floats.
The experiment was carried out in a private pool in Tauste (Zaragoza). Two panel support floats and two perimeter corridor floats were assembled. The hexagons were poured into the water, which were repositioned between the free spaces between the floats and joined together, so that the sheet of water was almost completely covered.
As conclusions of the experiment, it was found that the buoyancy of the elements will allow the photovoltaic panels to be at a surface of the liquid film such that the risk of slurry splashing, due to the movement caused by the incorporation or churning of slurry in the pond, is minimised. In addition, it was found that the free space between floats is easily covered by the hexagonal elements.
The article “Proyecto de investigación para definir alternativas en el aprovechamiento y control del potencial de las balsas de purines” has been published in issue 187 of the journal Anaporc, published by the National Association of Scientific Pig Farming.
