A Victorian farmer has defied hovering power payments to save lots of $400,000 in the course of the previous decade – and he needs to indicate different producers how they’ll get monetary savings too.
Chicken farmer Chris Freney has made the effectivity financial savings by putting in variable pace motors in his sheds, enhancing insulation and introducing solar energy.
“The best energy is …. the energy you don’t use … it’s free,” Mr Freney informed AAP.
He will encourage different farmers to turn out to be extra power environment friendly when he speaks on the nationwide renewables in agriculture convention in Dubbo on Wednesday.
Mr Freney can be constructing an cardio digester to transform the ten,000 tonnes of manure his birds produce yearly into power to assist energy his farm.
But he mentioned regulatory hurdles have been irritating his power journey as a result of the biofuel plant will sit on an adjoining property, which suggests he cannot take his farm off grid.
“I’m going to have a renewables project on one title … my own farm can’t take the electrical energy, I have to buy it back off the grid after I export it,” he mentioned.
The industrial hen operator spent $25 million organising the greenfield web site in Traralgon and produces about 4.5 million birds for meat consumption yearly.
He mentioned large and small-scale producers could make power financial savings.
“The bigger I’ve gone the economy of scale has helped, but a small farmer… can make the same proportion in savings,” Mr Freney mentioned.
“The payback is within five years at least, probably more like four years.”
Conference organiser Karin Stark mentioned step one within the renewables journey was for farmers to verify they first diminished their power consumption.
“You don’t want to be sizing a renewable energy system or solar to meet the demand that might be quite high on your farm, when you could actually reduce that significantly,” she informed AAP.
“Chris is a great case study of the steps you need to take before you go to renewables.”
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
