Reduction of Production Cost for Beef Fattening Cattle by DC Solar-Cell Water Pump Somchat Sonasang Department of Electronic Technology Faculty of Industrial Technology Nakhon Phanom University, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand e-mail: somchat.s@npu.ac.th Phatcharanat Saeng-on Department of Electronic Technology Faculty of Industrial Technology Nakhon Phanom University, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand e-mail: s.phatcharanat@gmail.com Nawee Udorn Department of Electronic Technology Faculty of Industrial Technology Nakhon Phanom University, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand e-mail: navy@npu.ac.th Warawut Buachoom Department of Electronic Technology Faculty of Industrial Technology Nakhon Phanom University, Nakhon Phanom, Thailand e-mail: tivter@npu.ac.th Abstract—This article aimed to assess the reduction of production costs for beef-fattening cattle by using a DC solar- cell water pump. The reduction of production costs for beef- fattening cattle by DC solar-cell water pump used two 330-W solar panels and a water pump system with 0.5 HP to produce food for the cattle. The machine pumps groundwater to grass and corn fields, which are then used to feed the cattle. The duration of the experiment was 4 months. The results demonstrated that the use of solar energy could greatly reduce production costs. Based on comparison with older machines, the reduction amounted to 41%. Thus, the use of solar energy should be promoted in the agricultural sector at the regional level. Keywords-solar energy; cost; beef-fattening cattle I. INTRODUCTION Nowadays, the energy crisis in Thailand significantly affects the country’s economy and development. Due to the change of consumer behavior of the people and the expansion of the industrial sector, the result is increased demand for energy use [1], which also impacts the agricultural sector. One aspect of the sector is the beef- fattening cattle system, which has more production costs as it depends on electrical energy or petroleum energy to produce food. Solar energy is necessary for the agricultural sector in food production. Most of the production costs for beef- fattening cattle are high, which decreases the income of agriculturalists according to the use of petroleum fuel. The design and experiment of the DC pumping machine using Simulink [2] and the solar panels provided good results, but this experiment did not involve a real test in the field. The researchers [3] presented the design and experiment for the solar energy system with the Matlab program by simulating the machine working according to the field and water volume. In [4] researchers have proposed the A.C. motor for water pump, but systems be necessary inverter to increased costs of the system. In [5] proposed the performance and economic analysis of solar water pump system, the system can reduce energy cost for the agriculturist. In [6] the researcher has proposed a directive improvement in the efficiency of a DC motor in combination with a centrifugal pump at different temperature of the solar cell, systems were widely used at 5–8-m water head. In [7] proposed the BLDC motor driven water pumping used a solar PV generation, the system has been simulated using the MATLAB toolboxes, and implemented on an experimental prototype. Recently in [8-13] proposed the water-pumping systems on synchronous reluctance motor drives [8] and present a non-isolated dual output DC-DC converter for a water pumping photovoltaic powered system [9]. In [10] proposed a single switch dual output Zeta derived DC-to-DC converter for an efficient harvesting of PV power for a 4-phase SRM driven agriculture pump. In [11] proposed water pump driven used solar PV for BLDC motor. In [12] proposed design, control, and implementation of a solar PV array-fed speed sensorless direct torque control of IMD use to driven the water pumping in a standalone. And [13] presented the Artificial neural network (ANN) for maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique for single stage solar PV fed BLDC. However, this system has not simply for using in agricultural farming. In this article, the design of the DC solar-cell pump is represented because the solar energy system is easy for actual usage in addition to being convenient and cost- effective. The cost of oil imports for underground water to produce food to feed the cattle. In the period of 4 months (February 2019 and May 2019) for the oil pump groundwater of each month are 980, 950, 1,100, and 1,000 THB respectively. The use of this system decreases the production costs for cattle food and encourages the use of alternative energy in the agricultural and. simply for using in 20 978-1-7281-9028-0/20/$31.00 ©2020 IEEE 2020 The 3rd International Conference on Power and Energy Applications