While farmers cannot control tariff pricing, there are ways to take control and reduce consumption and costs onsite. The QFF Energy Savers team is holding a short webinar series to improve farmers’ knowledge and understanding of their energy usage and how to reduce their electricity bills.
Recently, Ryan Dillon from Websters Group presented findings from various Energy Savers farm audits.
Ryan highlighted that although dollar savings were important, there are other benefits when taking a holistic view of a farm such as time and production benefits, along with good environmental outcomes. Read further learning from the webinar below:
Dairy and horticulture heating and cooling systems
- Repairing compressed air leaks – a 3mm leak in a 9-bar system could be wasting nearly 26,000kWh per year.
- Uninsulated cold-water pipes can gain temperature which was illustrated with photos showing a 7 degree increase over a few metres.
- Similarly, uninsulated hot water pipes can lose heat rapidly.
- Plate coolers should have a flow ratio of 2:1 to optimise heat transfer.
- Check the operation of heat exchangers and plate coolers by installing pressure gauges either side and monitor any changes in pressure.
Irrigation Pumps
- Throttling pumps using valves to reduce flow increases the energy required to pump each ML of water, consider the right sized pumps or Variable Speed Drives.
- Pumping through low-diameter pipes, right-angled bends and valves increases friction head and pumping costs.
Ryan sent a Jar of Jellybeans with each bean representing $1000 of savings over ten years he had identified in the Energy Audits he conducted. A competition poll was held during the webinar to guess the total savings that have been identified, with the magic number being 1,420.
View the presentation slides HERE and a video recording of the webinar HERE.
For these and other events check in regularly to the QFF events page or subscribe to our newsletter HERE. As audits continue to inform our webinar series new and interesting case studies are also published HERE.
If you have any questions about how the program can benefit your business or general enquiries get in touch with the Energy savers team at energysavers@qff.org.au.