Depuration tanks hold oysters or mussels in clean, recirculating seawater passed through UV sterilisers so the shellfish purge themselves. Pumps, UV lamps and often a small chiller have to run without a break for the required time. If the power drops, the run may have to restart once flow and UV are restored, which delays harvest and ties up tanks. Shellfish sheds tend to sit on exposed coastlines at the end of long lines.
A UPS-mode inverter and LiFePO4 battery switch over the instant the grid drops, so the UV and pumps never stop. The fuel cell then runs from stored hydrogen made on off-peak power or wind. The buffer holds at 30 bar or less and keeps for weeks between events. Because the switch is instant, your logging should show an unbroken run. Your own process records and food safety plan still apply, and how outages are recorded is a matter for your regulator.
How it works →
Recirculation pumps, UV units and a small chiller on a handful of tanks sit well within 15 kW continuous. Larger plants with many tanks and big chillers may need a larger or multi-unit setup. Round-trip efficiency is 30% or less, so this protects runs rather than lowering your bill.
The hybrid inverter runs in UPS mode, so there is no gap. The UV and pumps carry on as if nothing happened, and the battery covers the moment of changeover while the fuel cell comes up to take the steady load.
That is for your food safety plan and regulator to decide. The system is designed to keep pumps and UV running through an outage, but it does not replace your own records or approval process.
It can be, with an enclosure suited to salt air and proper siting. It is designed to AS/NZS 60079 and ISO 19880 with redundant leak sensors, automatic shutdown and venting, and low-pressure storage.
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