Most farmers could save big bucks on electricity use

I always considered hydro (electricity) to be one of the most labour saving commodities on the farm – especially when I milked cows. My hydro bill was never excessively high because I operated with good equipment and had an updated electrical system. In fact, my hydro bills have always been very reasonable considering everything that runs on electricity.

We had a manure pump, barn cleaner and a good pipeline milking and milk cooling system. The manure pump worked about 15-20 minutes a day in our tie-stall dairy barn and operated for 23 years. Manure from our 35 cows was pumped down a 12-inch wide pipe to the outside manure-storage area. It was a new way of removing sloppy manure in the mid-1970s.

I knew dairy farmers who always had very high hydro bills. They’d have a heater going full blast in the milkhouse because there was a hole in the wall, the door wouldn’t shut properly or they had a poorly constructed milkhouse. If they wasted energy in the milkhouse, they most likely wasted it in the barn and the house.

I remember someone who had two freezers plugged in. They had meat in one freezer that just covered the bottom. The other freezer was also a fair size one and they kept bread, a few pies and some orange juice in it. What a waste of money!

Using more efficient lighting, fans, vacuum pumps and compressors could add up to thousands of dollars in electricity savings for the average Ontario dairy farm, according to a recently completed on-farm energy audit.

Conducted by Guelph-based consultants Agviro Inc., the audit looked at electricity use and potential savings on 65 farms, primarily dairy, swine and poultry operations, says a recent issue of Milk Producer.

On average, these farms could save $1,520 a year from lighting changes; $1,000 a year from improved fan motors and exhaust hoods; $800 (dairy farms only) by switching to variable frequency drive vacuum pumps.

A survey of dairy farms participating in the audit found the most common energy-efficient equipment were plant coolers and milk heat reclaimers at 27 per cent each, described in the reports as "a surprisingly low figure." None had a variable frequency drive vacuum pump or scroll compressor.

The audit found tie-stall operators generally use more electricity per cow or per hectolitre of milk produced than free-stall farms. One big factor accounting for the difference is power used in tie-stall feeding systems, says The Milk Producer.

"Feeding system motor loads typically will be larger on tie-stall farms than free-stall due to differences in storage and handling techniques," says the report. "Tie-stall barns will employ silo rather than bunker storage. Silo storage is more dependent upon motors to move feed."

Tie-stall barns also tend to use more electricity for ventilation and lighting.

Milk Producer says the amount of electricity used per cow varied widely in both types of operations. Tie-stall ranged between 668 kilowatt hours (kWh) and 1,946 kWh per cow, with an average 1,417 kWh. The range for free stalls was 571 to 1,039 kWh per cow and an average 837kWh.

Overall, the audited dairy farms had an average annual electricity cost of $13,141 in 2006. The audit report recommends education, training and awareness to improve farmers’ general understanding about electricity as a production cost.

"Benchmarking is an area that needs to be developed for producers to help them understand how much energy is being used per unit of production," the audit report in The Milk Producer states.

The consultants conclude that producers need benchmarks to compare their electricity use to that of other producers. Benchmarks would help them improve their operations and reduce the amount of energy consumed by the industry as a whole. Many producers do not know how much electricity they use.