Better Farming - March 2007 - Power At Work (2)

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March 2007 Issue

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An action plan for saving energy on your farm - Part II

Conservation or substitution offers the best hope of reducing your energy costs around the farm – on everything from running your motors to grain drying, heating and lighting

by RALPH WINFIELD

Last month, I dealt entirely with energy conservation at the farm residence. Here, I will deal with some general and some more specific issues unique to the nature of your farm operation.

Saving energy in the field.
Evaluate each field pass of equipment. Just moving the tractor across a field requires a significant amount of energy, so minimize the number of passes by combining operations whenever practical.

Many of you are already practicing minimum tillage for common crops such as corn, beans and hay. For some specialized crops, however, delaying field operations until the moisture conditions are just right is often the key to providing an ideal seed bed with minimum trips. My farming partner, Don, who does all our tillage work, is a master of the art. He is often seen doing tillage work before breakfast or after dark and it's not because he has another day job.

Most of you will have heard of the term "gear up and throttle back." While it can be an energy saver, it can also create some disastrous outcomes. If full power-take-off (pto) speed is required for a spreading or spraying operation, do not gear up and throttle back.

A few years back, I custom-combined a field of wheat with my new yield monitor in place. Every pass on the fertilizer spreader tracks gave yield values of 100 bushels an acre. At the mid-swath point, the yield values dropped to 85 bushels an acre. This was consistent across the whole field. Full pto speed and thus full spinner speeds of the fertilizer spreader had not been maintained to provide a uniform spread pattern.

Similarly, when I selected my preferred spraying gear with a new tractor sprayer combination, I determined that it was absolutely critical to hold full pto speed to ensure consistent forward travel speed when going up even slight grades. Which is more critical and cost-effective? Saving a small amount of diesel fuel or getting uniform spray application?

Aside from these two examples, the electronic control systems on many of the new larger tractors shift gears automatically in order to optimize drawbar horsepower and fuel efficiency. This is great technology for tillage work where forward speed and pto speed are not critical.

Saving energy at the farmstead.
Let's go to the shop or tractor storage shed first. If you know that certain tractors are going to be started regularly in cold weather, pamper those units. Park them in a warmed area, above freezing if possible. In or out of the warmed area, use time clocks on both block heaters and hydraulic oil warmers. A two-to-four hour warm-up period is just as effective as having the heaters on continuously. The electrical energy savings will pay for the timers in a few weeks.

But, please, if you do not have oil-warming elements for your hydraulic/hydrostatic fluid, DO NOT install water-heating elements. Their higher surface temperature (watt density) will oxidize the hydraulic fluid. The damage will outweigh the projected benefits of easier start-up.

Warming the shop area is critical if you plan to do even routine maintenance. A well-insulated shop will require very little heat to keep the temperature above freezing, especially if you have a south-facing translucent area or solar wall. In many locations, a simple wood stove or furnace will often suffice. In larger shops, used oil furnaces can be considered, especially if the supply of available used oil is going to otherwise create a disposal cost. Radiant heating can also be used but should follow insulation on the priority list.

Save on lighting.
My relatively small 32 x 48 foot (9.75 x 14.6 metres) shop has white steel inner cladding and a large, south-facing translucent door. Even during the winter, the only lighting I require is a service light to work in shaded areas. I do have a full lighting system, but it is only used for unplanned emergency night repairs.

Again, for outside security lighting (not task lighting), high pressure sodium fixtures are the best choice. However, if you have an outside pad area where emergency night repairs occur, incandescent Par-type lighting is probably the best choice as the colour rendering is acceptable and hours of use are likely low.

Those small spiral fluorescent bulbs are also making inroads into heated poultry buildings. They can be used on separate light strings for base lighting needs. At present, dimmable incandescent bulbs are still the best choice for the variable lighting component.

Enclosed fluorescent fixtures with cold-start ballasts are becoming popular in the new, large milking parlours that are rising all across Ontario.

In cold buildings with high ceilings, large, high-intensity discharge light fixtures have become the energy-efficient systems of choice. They work well in newer shops and free-stall dairy barns.

Save on motors.
Whenever and wherever motors are used, look for high efficiency units, especially if they are going to run continuously on such things as ventilation fans.

If possible, stagger the use of large motor loads to minimize demand charges. Some chores, like manure removal, do not need to be done when other large motor loads are operating for feeding.
When possible, consider natural ventilation systems for livestock buildings. This will greatly reduce fan motor energy usage in the warmer months when electricity is at a premium and all the fans would be running 24 hours a day.

Save on water heating.
About the only real opportunity to cut back on water heating is in dairy operations where heat is being removed from milk. Again, with the larger dairies, hot water can be used for staff showers and for clothes washing on site. Unfortunately, the total heat removed cannot be used effectively, so the excess must be dumped. That is one of those unfortunate realities.

Save on grain drying.
Most of the older, thin-column, high temperature dryers have been scrapped or relegated to low-use applications. Newer dryers recirculate the cooling air and a small portion of the drying air to increase drying efficiency. Many dryers are also using a deeper corn column (bed) so that the air is more fully saturated before it leaves the column to increase energy use efficiency.

For anyone drying grain, it is critical to remember that the lower points of moisture cost the most energy to remove. Thus, overdrying is an expensive practice. That "energy money" is better spent on superior aeration equipment so that the final moisture content can be adjusted (along with the mass temperature) by improved selection of aeration timing. Operator knowledge is the key to moisture manipulation success.

Save on farmstead heating.
Wood-or corn-fired heating units, centrally located on the farmstead to heat more than one building and hot water at the residence, are becoming popular at many locations. They make good sense where a source of wood or corn is readily available and someone is available to supervise the unit.

When I worked for Ontario Hydro and lived in Toronto (over 30 years ago), North York Hydro had a good idea that could still work today - “flat rate” water heating. The price paid varied with the size of water heater (i.e. 40 gallons versus 60 gallons) and element size. The power supply bypassed the meter, but they could "shed load" by radio-wave controlled dumping of as many water heaters as was necessary during peak demand periods. In five years, we were never short of hot water. The power generator, the utility and the customers were all winners.

Other considerations.
Are individual farms going to benefit significantly from things like "smart meters" or wind turbines? I don't think so. Most on-farm operations are time-sensitive and cannot be adjusted. Water heating might be an exception, but if the farm has a demand meter, off-peak water heating is probably already being practiced, if feasible. It can be done with a simple timer.

Yes, wind turbines can generate electricity and will come into use on some individual farms - probably larger, extended family operations where all or most of the energy can be used directly or “wheeled through” the power grid for later use.

For most of us, conservation or substitution is going to be the best solution to reducing our energy dependency and costs. BF

Agricultural engineer Ralph Winfield farms at Belmont in Elgin County.


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