1/11/08 Cutting Costs

Cutting Costs. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. We are all looking at ways to cut costs, whether through debt consolidation, cutting back on entertainment, whatever. But as a farming operation, how do you cut back. According to Craig Metz, vice-president of EnSave, Inc. you might want to look at energy output. METZ: We designed and developed a farm energy audit to begin the process to look at farms because a lot of the farms really didn't know where to start. Where do they begin, what do you do as far as energy efficiency and what's the right step or what's the right progression? So what we did was designed our farm energy audit where we would go on to the farms and we would make recommendations to those farmers. Metz says they would then tie those recommendations into the dealer network for installation of recommended equipment. Meanwhile the customer would get incentives from the utilities. Metz will be presenting some of these ideas at the upcoming Harvesting Clean Energy Conference in Portland. METZ: I think one of the opportunities which is wonderful about the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference is this is a great opportunity for people that maybe are thinking  what can I do to save energy on my farm, and to be able to have a forum like this where people can come and really hear what industry experts are talking about and what are the opportunities and what are the funding opportunities? Metz says that if you really take a good hard look at your operation the savings can be substantial. METZ: We operated a program with New York State Energy Research Development Authority and what we did was we looked at the dairy industry. We looked at that industry and we identified the variable speed drive on the milking vacuum pump as a technology that would help the dairy industry in New York and with that particular program we ended up saving the State of New York 10 million kwh, we reduced nox emission by a little less than 3 tons. We put 572 farmers through the program and those farmers saved over $1.2 million dollars in first year energy savings. He says they look at all kinds of incentives like lighting, ventilation, motors, controllers and a number of other things. But he says one of the best ways to start is by taking a good hard look at your operation. METZ: The first place to start is with an analysis of the farm operation, the whole farm operation whether it's propane, fuels, diesel as well as electricity, that's the first place to start. For additional information on clean energy and the upcoming Harvesting Clean Energy Conference, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org