Written by Jennifer Brown, Cotton Australia and Karin Stark, ReAqua.
Energy costs are an increasing issue for many farming businesses around Australia. Microgrids could present opportunities to reduce costs, increase renewables and share excess energy between neighbours, however energy use on farms vary greatly according to the season, tariff prices, knowledge and behaviours of the farmer. These nuances are part of a study that Queensland Farmers Federation is leading, along with Cotton Australia, ReAqua and Constructive Energy, to explore how exactly microgrids would be applied in four different farming scenarios in Queensland and New South Wales.
The technical study looks to manipulate data from over 60 meters installed across the four farm case studies, to model how a virtual microgrid could work. While data is being collected, the team have been busy speaking to the farmers involved in the study to better understand some of the social aspects that could be driving motivations and behaviours around energy use.
Project component context – why the survey
In parallel to the technical feasibility study, the project is fostering a community of interest which includes the study’s participant farmers. The project team recognise the value of collaborative learning and sharing of experiences between those interested in the potential microgrids have for agriculture and in their rural and regional communities. (This has also been the impetus for the project’s webinar series.)
It was important to understand the current levels of knowledge and attitudes of the farmers participating in the microgrids study so that changes can be identified over time and the impact of this study understood.
By undertaking a baseline Entry Survey, the project team were able to identify motivations for participating in the study, current energy literacy, what participant’s ideal energy use scenario looked like and their level of risk in joining a microgrid that could be disconnected to the grid.
The survey also picked up operational insights and facts about what is on site, how it is used across the farm/season to inform the project’s data dashboard and also the modelling opportunities later on.
The survey will be repeated at the end of the project, to gauge change over time but also capture intended change in any management practices due to what participants learnt throughout the microgrids project.
What we asked
- Reasons for involvement in the project
- Experience with and understanding of current energy arrangements and technology, for both them and their community
- On-farm energy ‘aspirations’ if there were no time and money barriers
- Existing intensions for their on-farm future energy management plans
- Where and how energy is used on-farm and was last season a typical year
What are we hearing so far
- Electricity is seen as too expensive and growers can quickly list there biggest on-farm energy users
“Pumps for irrigation.”
“Cool room costs us $5K a month but it’s very old, about 25 years old.”
- Further impacting on business sustainability is the parallel pressure of the rising price of water for irrigation, causing them to look for solutions.
“Spending twice as much to extract to have as much water, had to look into how to be more efficient on farm”
“Normally I would irrigate at night but with the addition of solar a couple of years ago, I now starts at 6am instead of 6pm and turn the pumps off at 5:30pm at night; last year this cut my bill by 50%,.”
- Farmers are keen to understand alternative energy solutions and ways to share energy across their farm and with neighbours.
“If the whole community is gaining out of it, less power costs for everyone is probably the main thing.”
“It goes back to costs. The more people you get involved in it the better the cost. Collective helping drive the price down.”
- There are a range of motivators for participating in the microgrids project and not just about reducing energy costs but also securing more reliable energy.
“Had some issues with power dropping out during hottest months in 2018 and 2019. Usually for 10 to 40 minutes in peak of rolling blackouts. We have had threats of “may lose power” during harvest which is a big worry.”
“We lost power for five hours a few days ago, they were working on the poles. It’s the second time in three weeks.”
- Wanting to decarbonise has also been cited as a motivation for participants
“Lots of people are aware of their impact on the environment, who would want to source green and local energy.”
“We could power everything with the 65kW solar if we could share it both across NMIs and the full 24 hours.”
“Everybody would like to be able to share the power they make. Where we are, we’re dragging power from the power station and they lose about 30 + 40% of the power getting it here! Doesn’t make sense.”
- While only the start of the project and their level of knowledge around how microgrids work and the benefits is low growers are keen to share their knowledge as they learn more about renewables, microgrids and energy sharing.
“Everyone’s got an open mind. A couple of the neighbours have got pretty big solar on their pumps already. They might want to share it!”
“A lot more people are going greener these days. And if they are supporting their local farmers – people would support that.”
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