Devon poultry farm saves money with solar PV
For Richard and Rosemarie Smaldon, investing in renewable energy was a logical next step to help further alleviate input costs and ensure a secure future for their poultry business.
“All businesses have costs. Some you can mitigate and some you can’t, but electricity is one base cost I can reduce,” explains Mr Smaldon.
Ventilation and lighting are among the most crucial and costly components of the business, which produces five million hatching eggs a year for the poultry meat industry.
Air quality, temperature and light intensity must be perfect to promote optimum egg production across the 30,000 birds managed in the unit at any one time.
All of the five sheds at the site in north Devon are ventilated to 19-24C, depending on building size, with fans working to some degree 24 hours a day. Lighting is also carefully controlled, with perceived day length increasing gradually to encourage egg production.
As a result of these high energy demands, the Smaldons started looking at renewable energy options and chose to invest in a solar photovoltaic (PV) system.
“PV synchronises extremely well with our poultry system. The birds need more ventilation as the sun rises, which corresponds to the time of day when PV is most effective. Then, as the temperature decreases, our electrical demand is reduced,” explains Mr Smaldon.
He says choosing the right renewable company – one that would be there for the long-term – was one of the main criteria when seeking advice.
As a result he began talking to MoleEnergy – the renewables arm of Mole Valley Farmers. The company was able to advise on options and match Mr Smaldon up with one of their preferred installation companies, Source Renewable.
In 2011, Mr Smaldon dipped a toe in the water by installing a 50kW array. After quickly seeing the benefits from added income and energy savings, he chose to install another 100kW array at the start of 2012. Another 100kW system was installed in June this year.
As the system was installed in stages, each array is on a different Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) rate. However, although FiTs rates have declined, MoleEnergy’s Andy Taplin says this is a good example of how producers can still benefit from PV.
“Perception can be that PV is no longer worthwhile because FiTs have reduced. But hardware costs have also reduced in that time and the price of energy has gone up,” he explains. “This means the percentage return potential from PV is as good as it’s ever been.”
The Smaldons’ full 250kW ground-mounted array has only been up and running since June, but such a system is predicted to bring an estimated yearly benefit of at least £45,000.
“At our location, the PV system is estimated to generate 236,500kWh a year, which is a substantial electricity saving and worth about £25,000 from the FiTs,” says Mr Smaldon.
In addition, the farm will also receive an export tariff for the energy not used, which can be exported into the National Grid. This makes the installation payback about six years.
However, Mr Smaldon believes the actual benefits are likely to be higher. “In the first year the 50kW array performed 10% better than predicted in terms of energy cost savings, and this year the system is on track to perform even better.”