Hydraulic Storage of Solar Energy for Supplying Pumping Units with Drip Irrigation of Plants

Abstract

The article discusses the issues of reducing energy costs when irrigating areas occupied by agricultural crops in the Republic of Uzbekistan, where agriculture is one of the key sectors of the economy. A drip water supply system is proposed for irrigation of agricultural plants, including a water storage tank, a pumping unit, a photovoltaic installation, filters, fertilizer dispensers, drip pipes, and a control panel. A pumping unit powered by a photovoltaic unit accumulates water (energy) in a storage tank during periods of solar activity. Then the volume of water from the tank is used to irrigate agricultural plants without using a pumping unit. The methodology for determining the water-energy parameters of the proposed scheme, such as water consumption for irrigation by irrigation periods, the capacity of the pumping unit, the annual volume of required water and electric energy, the daily volume of the reservoir, the daily and annual generated energy and the capacity of the pumping unit, is presented. The results of calculations of the system of drip irrigation of tomato on an area of 20 hectares are presented, which showed the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, due to the use of a photovoltaic installation and hydraulic energy storage. In contrast, the expediency of accumulating the volume of water only in peak hours of solar activity for the efficient use of solar energy and reducing the operating time of pumping unit is shown. The efficiency of hydraulic storage is shown in comparison with electrochemical energy storage methods; in addition, the proposed method of energy storage compares favorably with the specific cost of power, quick turn-on, large volumes of primary energy storage.