Smarter farming saves power

• Audit reveals changes in equipment and practices to save energy
• Device for varying milking speed reduces electricity use by 20 %
• Heat recovery and improvements to milk chillers saves hundreds annually

U Godsell & Sons is a 200-head dairy farm near Gloucester, United Kingdom, which explored how to improve its energy performance.

The annual energy spend at the farm is around £ 4 000 (~€ 4 480), emitting 28 tonnes of CO2. The farm uses electricity mainly for hot water preparation, lighting, milking, and refrigeration. Energy consumption is typical for a dairy farm: divided fairly evenly between milking, lighting and auxiliary equipment; hot water preparation; and cooling milk.

The farm wanted to review how it uses energy, from ways to benefit from off-peak electricity rates for milk cooling and hot water preparation, to monitoring consumption and staff energy use habits. 

The recommendations they received were both for technical improvements (equipment) and practices (processes).

These measures included:

• Increasing capacity of the spring water milk chiller
• Installing a variable speed drive (VSD) on milking equipment
• Installing heat recovery equipment on milk chillers

Key results

Installing VSDs on the milking lines has cut electricity consumption by 20 % and will pay for itself in less than five years. Improvements to the chiller, which cost around £ 1 000 (~€ 1119), will lead to annual savings of some £ 300 (~€ 336).

Heat recovery equipment to preheat hot water using waste heat from the milk chillers costs around £ 1 000 and provides annual savings of £ 100 (~€ 112).