Project Harvest: Vegetable Consumer and Market program
18 December 2014Energy Saving Case Study
18 January 2015Infotech Research conducted 22 energy audits of vegetable growers around Australia, as part of project VG13054‐ Economic evaluation of farms energy audits and benchmarking of energy use on vegetable farms. Through this project we found that these audits best assisted medium sized growers with farms and packing sheds in improving their business profitability through energy saving measures. The best returns on investment are achieved through prevention of energy losses (waste losses) followed by energy efficiency improvements. Small and large growers need a different emphasis on energy management. The former require practical guidance while the latter need more detailed investigations of processes to gain an understanding of the best actions for energy savings. A focal point of this project was dissemination of information and cost saving opportunities revealed by the audits. Infotech Research produced five case studies and presented at seven grower forums to discuss the audit program, benchmarking results and key opportunities for energy efficiency improvement. We also produced a set of 74 energy saving opportunities for growers that will be distributed via the Ausveg Infoveg web pages. Of the 74 improvement opportunities, 69 were costed as being of interest to a majority of growers. Simple loss reduction measures were found for most growers and process efficiency measures yielded potential savings from 10% to 40% of current electrical energy demand. Infotech Research produced a benchmarking report (Appendix 1) and options analysis to assist growers to evaluate their own energy consumption. Benchmarking of energy efficiency for growers was not directly comparable from one grower to another due to the wide variety of circumstances of individual growers. The benchmarking can be best put into use by individual growers benchmarking their own performance and being able to measure improvement with time. It was also possible to measure technology or process efficiency, for