Climate change, global warming and carbon footprint are becoming mainstream words understood by most to some degree at this stage.

As a basic concept we need to reduce our carbon emissions on Irish dairy farms and renewable energy alternatives can certainly help us to achieve this. It’s difficult to ask farmers, any business for that matter to invest in reducing emissions without some level of return.

This week we’re outlining the potential of investing in solar energy to reduce electricity costs and cut down emissions to answer the question. Do solar panels really offer us something viable from a cost-saving point of view?

Solar panels and indeed solar farms are becoming a more frequent site across the country. In general, smaller suckler, beef and sheep farms are not utilising enough electricity to get the benefit from them.

Large dairy farms on the other hand are using significant amounts of electricity to power parlours, lighting, bulk tanks, scrapers and so on.

Recent research by our renewable’s editor Stephen Robb, showed that on a case study of a 200-cow dairy farmer solar power had the potential to supply 43% of the farm’s total electricity demand.

Costs

The study calculation was done based on an expected investment cost of €47,000 which included the equipment, installation and extra battery storage. This investment was based on a 200-cow dairy farm with an annual electricity bill of just over €13,000 plus vat.

The farm was milking twice a day, had a 20-unit herringbone parlour and an 18,000l bulk tank. Overall electricity usage was 53,345kWh per year.

An on farm assessment of electricity use will be required to be submitted with the applications for grant aid if you're considering this as an opportunity.

When it comes to grants, the size of the equipment can determine the level of grant aid available. The Solar PV used in this study was 26.4kWp. It required 117msq of roof space and has a 30-year performance guarantee.

For this investment TAMS III is available on the initial solar equipment plus an extra storage battery. The TAMS is available at 60% of the reference costs. In total the TAMS grant came to a value of €28,000.

The total cost of the system after the grant is €18,000. With an annual saving estimated at €5,763 that’s a payback time of three years and three months.

A less talked about saving but one that will likely be at the forefront in the coming years is the emissions saving. In this example the emissions saved equate to eight tonnes of CO2 per annum.

There are smaller solar panels available and while the payback might not be exactly three years and three months on a smaller farm, it’s not going to be too far away.

My Rating

Plenty of research would need to be done if your thinking of this investment. Get in contact with the different solar providers to see what options are available first but this seems like an undervalued investment in my opinion.

Three years and three months is a very quick payback on a sizeable investment. TAMS aid makes the total investment figure much more attractive. One would need to dig into the reference costs versus actual costs quoted by different providers to be sure before taking the plunge.

Based on the example above I’d give this investment a rating of 4/5. It’s difficult to find many investments with as quick of payback that aren’t directly related to grass and cows. As the spotlight grows on emissions into the future, this is another feather in the cap for farms willing to take the plunge.