Automated Solar Aquaponics (ASA)

The current economical and social crisis in Lebanon exponentioally increased the rate of unemployment, and expanded the food insecurity issue in the country. In this sense, solving the shortage in food issue became a top priority, and innovative techniques became a must to secure sustainable food resources.

The proposed innovative automated solar aquaponics system (ASA) mimics the lifecycle and utilizes solar energy to cover the energy requirements and to meet the water temperature demands of the fish and plants within the system. In addition to integrating a water treatment scheme that makes use of wastewater through treating it and integrating this valuable resource into the system.

Every single unit of ASA covers the food need for the nearby community, which ranges between 150 and 250 persons who are the most needy, living at below the per minimum wage per month, in addition to refugees living in tough situations.

The main challenge that the proposed solution is addressing the shortage in food resources in Lebanon and in the world. The current economical crisis and the recession in the world's economy is causing more and more people to lose their jobs and live with less than 5$/day. These people in need, living in urban areas where there is no room for agricultural development, in addition to refugees who also live in tough situations, face a huge challenge in securing their needs of food resources in their area, and are obliged to go to depend on resources from far markets, which increases the food cost.

The proposed solution, ASA, is the first aquaponics system that is fully powered with solar energy to cover the energy demands to run the system, and to secure the needed heating of the water within the system. This way, ASA reduces the carbon emissions during food production and helps reducing the carbon footprint. The system is automated, and includes a control and power system to optimize the performance of the system while maintaing the required needs. Moreover, a water treatment scheme is integarted with the system to make it further sustainable and to make use of the fish waste water by treating it to secure a valuable resource. 

Every automated solar aquaponics unit covers the need for the nearby community, which ranges between 150 and 250 persons. The targeted community are the most people in need, who are unemployed people living with below the minimum wage (less than 5$/day). Also, the system helps refugees who live in tough situations. The targeted communities are the ones living in urban areas and facing difficulties in securing their needed food resources. By implementing our system, we are securing a resource of food for these people so that although they do not have large agricultural lands, they are still able to grow their crops and fish, in an environmentally friendly manner that makes use of renewable energy. 

Our direct competitors are the companies designing aquaponics systems for growing fish and plants, while the indirect competitors are companies designing hydroponics systems to grow plants, in addition to the traditional farming using large land fields. 

ASA is unique in terms of being fully powered by solar energy in terms of energy demands and water heating once needed, since aquaponics require specific temperatures for the water and the environment allover the year, and ASA is the first solution to achieve this completely by exploiting solar energy. This way, ASA reduces the energy requirements for food production,  by exploiting renewable energy resources, and helps in reducing the carbon footprint of the food production process. Moreover, ASA is automated and controlled through an instrumentation scheme that avoids human error and improves the efficiency. Finally, ASA is modular in terms of capacity, initial investment, and required productivity.

ASA system is fully powered by solar energy, where both solar water heaters, and photovoltaic (PV) cells are deployed. Moreover, the system is augmented with an automation and control unit for the sake of optimizing the system's productivity while saving the required resources. 

ASA system was first implemented for a 3,000 L aquaponics pond and tested for 6 months under various weather and temperature conditions for lettuce planting in the presence of Tilapia fish in Chouf area in Lebanon, the system is shown in the images below. The system resulted in planting around 60 Kg of Tilapia fish as well as up to 2500 Lettuce plants every two months. During the testing period, the system showed 30% productivity increase upon 60% saving in required space for this planting and 40% water savings through the closed loop implemented system. The obtained results reflect the validity and scalability of the implemented system as a key approach towards agricultural sustainability for Lebanon and the region. The chosen cite, Chouf, lies in the heart of the targeted impact zone which mainly focuses on Beirut and Mount Lebanon where the system will be scaled. This is because of their urban nature and rapidly increasing agricultural demand, in addition to the major scarcity in water and lands suitable for agricultural activities they are facing. These regions have a Mediterranean climate of wet, often snowy winters, and dry warm summers. Thus, they have a suitable environmental conditions for agricultural activities all over the year, these conditions are represented by the suitable elevation of the chosen sites as well as the moderate temperature all over the year.  

In the current economical crisis,  and its direct consequences on people's lives by increasing the rate of unemployment, and increasing the cost of food and other essential services, especially in urban areas, it became essential to provide innovative solutions to handle such pressing challenges. In this sense, we developed ASA as a solution for the food shortage problem that is challenging people in need and refugees living in tough situations. ASA was developed and a showcase was implemented in Chouf in Lebanon, and the obtained results were very promising. A data logger was placed in the implementation cite for 6 months and the system was tested under different environmental conditions. The obtained results will be published early next year in an accepted conference paper. Based on the feedback of the people in the community where the system was implemented, it is clear that ASA presents a game changer, since it enhances a new mentality in urban areas, where we become able to grow fish and crops in a manner that doesn't pollute the weather, and reduces the carbon footprint of the food production process by utilizing solar energy. Thus my theory of change can be summarized by saying that we need to provide sustainable solutions for pressing challenges, while keeping an eye on our environment.  

The system is currently addressing the needs of food resources of around 150 person.

Within one year, the system will be covering the food needs of around 600 person.

Finally, within five years from now, the system will be helping in covering the needs of at least 5000 person.

Within one year from now, we target to further scale the system and make new implementations to serve a larger community of people in need. In the next five years, we are looking for strategic partnerships to provide food sustainability for more people. Also, we planning to expand our services and the targeted market. 

The main challenge facing us is the financial situation in Lebanon which is currently undergoing a tough economical crisis that is affecting all aspects of life in the country, including the industrial and agricultural sectors. This crisis is expected to exist and extend in the next years to come as described in this article in the NY Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...

This difficult situation makes it very difficult for entrepreneurs and start-ups to expand their work and further develop their products and services.

Another major barrier that is of our concern is building strategical partnerships knowing the tough situation faced by companies and NGOs worldwide due to the health and financial crisis.

By carefully monitoring the available resources, and working on innovative solutions that address pressing challenges in our country and the worls, and in the same time, bring revenue to be able to handle the economical situation.

Also, we are trying to have the required exposure in order to have connections and build partnerships

Full-time: 1

Part-time: 2

ASA team is a multidisciplinary team that has the different knowledge and experience ranging between control, automation, biology, and agriculture necessary to develop this project much further and put it in the suitable impact zone.

We built a partnership with Innovating Green Technology (IGT) to scale the system further and develop an augmented solution that increases the productivity and efficiency of the system, benefiting from their experience and exposure in agriculture and energy sectors. 

In our business model, we aim to generate revenue by three main channels:

1- Implementing more units of our system.
2- Having maintenance contracts with our partners.
3- Make use of the collected data from the implemented units in order to further develop the system by focusing on R&D work.