What can a poultry producer do for energy efficiency on-farm?

The struggle to balance cost cutting with improved on-farm efficiency is taking on added urgency these days. Commodity prices, cost of production concerns -both with crops and birds -capital expenses for equipment inside the barn and food safety protocols are enough to keep any poultry producer hopping.

But now there are questions surrounding green energy systems and determining the best approach for on-farm efficiency. For me, these conditions apply whether I’m referring to a livestock producer or one who’s focused on crops.

A quick overview of my farm: I purchased my first farm in 2014, entered the broiler industry in 2016, and now own 250 acres. I attempt to operate as if I was advising another farmer on how to get started in the industry and have focused my efforts from the early years to expanding my acreage. Now, with land prices, I have shifted investments towards my poultry production. The two things I identified as a fit for me were solar panels for net metering and heat exchangers.

Makes cents
One of the reasons I like solar net metering is the theory that it shouldn’t create any additional work for me as a farmer once they are up. The current net metering offer in Ontario is to create your own hydro, push it back to the grid, and if you create more than you use, your bill will be minimized to the portions of the bill not eligible for the offset. My last bill was less than $100 and would have been more than $600 without net metering.

“The lesson here is to plan, be patient and talk through the timelines before installing the panels.”

Without grants or tax credits there is still a payback for pursuing solar, which is better than most of the investments in the farming community.

Experience is the great teacher
One thing to note would be the connection delays. Hydro One took six months after my solar was fully installed to allow us to start sending energy back to the grid. So, the lesson here is to plan, be patient and talk through the timelines before installing the panels.

Insurance liabilities need to be considered, as well. My insurance company had no issues with putting solar on the roof, but if it is a concern with your insurer, consider ground-mount options. For any producer looking at building a barn, I would suggest making sure their trusses are rated for a solar load. It’s an inexpensive addition when you’re building a barn. I talked to many farmers who have solar and found it was about half and half to those who prefer solar on the roof, or those who were concerned about structural impacts of the solar panels on the roof. For me the deciding factor was placement: I didn’t have any area on the farm that a ground mount would fit, not be in the middle of a field, and not have the potential to be in the way for future development in the next 50 years.

On my farm -with one barn and one house -the pay back without incentives was roughly 11 years, the initial price was $130,000. I needed a 55 kilowatt (kW) system, but built the infrastructure for a 75kW system that will allow expansion up to 150 kW in the future. Crescent Ridge Services out of Tavistock handled all aspects of the solar installation.

There is an Input Tax Credit (ITC) for 30% which incorporated farms are eligible to pursue. Unfortunately -for me -due to some accounting communication errors, I missed taking advantage of that opportunity for my farm. The good news is that by leveraging grants, I was still able to get the pay back down to about six years.

“What can I invest in that will show a return, and leverage extra hydro capacity?”

If you’re researching solar be conscious to only listen to those that have experience in this realm. Many farmers without solar panels relayed concerns on longevity and significant costs for maintenance. I made the effort to engage with multiple farmers who participated in the early micro fit programs and have had their systems for more than 10 years. The response was consistent that maintenance was minimal, the systems operated well, and degradation of the panels was not a concern.

Dream big
On a personal note, the reason I love this system is that as I expand into the future, the question has shifted from “What I can do to reduce hydro use?”, to “What can I invest in that will show a return, and leverage extra hydro capacity?” It’s enabled me to look at energy usage in a different way and is an intriguing prospect which holds many opportunities for future development.

Heat exchangers also seemed like a great investment. Since my barn is a single cross, it has bothered me since construction that I’m bringing air in, heating it and then 60 feet across the barn, exhausting it out the side. A heat exchanger makes sense and if I can heat the barn more efficiently, I can ventilate more to ensure carbon dioxide (C02), ammonia and humidity are always within BMP targets. When I constructed the barn, I was pitched on a large Vencomatic unit and given the cost compared to the barn, it seemed like a second-generation poultry producer investment. The ESA units cost me roughly $50,000 for three and that seemed a reasonable investment with a manageable return.

I have an 18,000 square-foot barn and the dealer suggested I have five units installed. I went with three as a test, with the thought that for the first four weeks of winter ventilation I should be fine with three. Typically the last week to 10 days I am adding another fan, but this is also when I’m least concerned about supplementing heat in the barn.

The heat exchanger unit I chose to go with was the ESA-3000. My intent was to do a fairly in-depth review of the return on investment (ROI) on my barn to validate the numbers from the company literature. Unfortunately, I recently learned that my insulation has settled to about r20 in the ceiling, and will need to be topped up before next winter; on an eight-year-old barn that’s a painful pill to swallow. But such is life and my ROI calculations will be limited to one winter of accurate numbers.

As I write this, it is -6 C in West Lorne, Ontario, the barn is set to 28.6 C, and the heat exchanger is bringing in fresh air at 15.3 C, for 62% efficiency. Not far off ESA’s claim of reducing heating costs by up to 70%. One thing worth noting is that it does take quite a bit of time to wash the heat exchanger cores. The units do come equipped with an auto flush system, but in my experience, it does take about an hour per unit to wash them well in between flocks.