Power generation for your tank/fish house/hooss.

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 17 Oct 2006, 12:05

The more observant among you may have noticed that I have a company in the power generation field. It's only a small company called Vandart engineering, (hence the vandart aquarium location which is what my family/friends call my house cos they reckon all the profits go on fish keeping.)
Any way, I'm sick of being involved in the art of destroying the planet and am looking into moving into 'green sources' of power generation.
We have got to the stage where we have a good economic and reliable supplier for equipment involved in micro generation and are currently testing some equipment for reliability and cost effectiveness.
Let me point out that this is not a marketing ploy, I am only asking in case anyone is interested in powering their fish house/tank with 'green methods' solar power,wind generation, geothermal etc.
The idea came to me to develop a microgeneration system taylored specifically to generate electricity/heat for different sizes of aquarium, something that maybe can be mounted in a sunny window or outside wall for example, that would make your tank completely independant from your house supply, a plug in and forget if you like. Which would not only save one money in the long run but would make power cuts a forgotten stress.
Like I said I am moving into this field anyway so I am not trying to drum up business.Im just letting you know in case you are interested (cost price to planet catfish members)

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 17 Oct 2006, 12:49

I will be looking into this when I extend my fish room as I believe the Scottish government hand out grants for green energy projects like this. I was looking at solar panels for the roof. As I am collecting rain water from the roof too, they need to be inert chemically.

Jools

worton[pl] · Post by **worton[pl]** » 17 Oct 2006, 13:43

Hey,

could you please PM me grokefish with a price of solar panel? I'm very interested in setting up something like this since everything in my country get more expensive with every second of live :/ (especially energy). Also is there any kind of energy that could replace for example earth gas heating house system (in Poland we have gas for about 40 years now and then simply we will have to change our systems of heating houses - it's better to do it now I guess ;))).
And during last 10 years gas energy get 10x more expensive or even more ;/

Regards.

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 17 Oct 2006, 19:29

Products are as I said still in testing so nothing will be available for a while. I do not want to supply anything without it being thoroughly tested first.
Joolz there are a lot of grants available in south wales also,
these are only available to approved supplyers which we are not as yet, but hope to be about the middle of next year.
I really want to test all the equipment throughout one set of seasons to acertain the specs to generate enough energy for the year round. Also I want to ensure that this supplier has a good spare parts/stock repair system in place.
For a fish house I would suggest a combination of solar and wind generation rather than relying on solar only, combined with a small air conditioning unit.This is the set up we will be testing.
Please supply appx. volume of the fish room to be heated
If you supply me (via my e-mail) with power requirements:- lights, secondary heaters, fans,filters pumps (peak and mean) I can give you an idea of a suitable system and of the cost price, which, if you get an approved supplier up there, will give you an idea wether your getting ripped off, or alternatively depending on the amount of your grant, cost price may be cheaper anyway. As for being chemically inert I will get back to you on that.
You can use waste energy, overcharge, for another circuit, or and this is the best bit, you can sell it back to the national grid and get some of the money those theiving......have been taking off you for years.
worton, which part of poland are you in? I have a job scheduled for next spring there. Also E-mail me with power requirements/heating requirements what I think you are looking for is a ground heat pump.

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 17 Oct 2006, 20:20

Joolz check this out.
http://www.est.org.uk/schri/household/grant.cfm
It is very unlikely that any approval we get down here will hold up in Scotland, you like to keep it 'in house' up there and quite rightly so.
30% of 4000 is leaving you with a deficit of 3800. I will definately be able to supply this cheaper if all goes acording to plan. You any good with electrics? I am stipulating supply not fit, I can help you with this. ALthough I'm sure I've seen someone is an electrician on this site who may also assist. It's all easy enough to fit yourself but you should check building regs. Also this supplier has talked of 'plug in systems' but as with everything these are more expensive.

Reginator · Post by **Reginator** » 17 Oct 2006, 21:12

I'd be interested in something like that, the other half even more I suspect

Where we live there's plenty of sunny days even throughout the winter..

CFC · Post by **CFC** » 18 Oct 2006, 14:15

I have a large outbuilding that i will be renovating to make into a purpose built fish house over the next few years, it will be a slow process and i dont expect it to be complete for at least the next 5 years but i would be very interested in eco power, partcularly solar and wind powered since my garden has both in abundance.

Keep us posted with any updates.

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 18 Oct 2006, 20:28

Will do.