Design of an intelligent controller for a renewable energy efficient bulk storage tank

Abstract

The national electricity supplier in South Africa is experiencing difficulty in providing the required electricity, due to compliance with environmental regulations and the continuous price increase of commercial fuels. Making use of renewable energy solutions and energy efficient systems in everyday applications would address this problem. This project focusses on cooling systems, and illustrates an energy efficient cooling system by making use of a pre-cooler for a bulk storage tank. The cooling tank uses thermoelectric cooling modules (TECMs) to cool the milk before it is added to the actual bulk tank, and is controlled by a programmable logic controller (PLC). A small scale model of an actual tank was used to perform tests, which indicated the abilities of the cooling system. Further Solidworks® simulations were done by implementing the measured results, where after it was decided to make use of a pre-cooler, instead of adding the system to a traditional cooling system. A solar power system to power the TECMs was also designed by making use of PVSyst® simulations