Energy ideas and targets

Why bother to think about energy at the farm? Industry and farming in the UK use a huge part of the nation's energy. How fantastic it would be if a big part of that was renewable energy. At Sheepdrove we are looking into a wide range solutions to suit each of our energy needs. These can be split into the categories of machinery + heat + electricity.

Some ideas

If we aim for sustainability in the way that we farm - e.g. the farm tries to grow as much of its own livestock feed as possible - wouldn’t it make sense to be sustainable in the way we use energy? We would like to:

• Set a target for part of our energy to be renewable
• Replace some of the fossil fuels with renewable fuels
• Make some of our own energy, e.g. generate electricity with renewable power

The challenge is to make a difference, in a way that is sympathetic to our local environment as well as the global environment.

Targets

During our 2006 case study, some stakeholders were concerned that some renewable energy at the farm could impact on the landscape character. We learned that getting 100% of our electricity from wind energy would be easy! However, this would have meant placing a windmill on a prominent ridge.

Responding to stakeholder concerns and the landscape sensitivity, the farm reduced the wind energy target, and therefore reset the total target to source only about 25% of its energy use from renewable supplies. As part of this, a realistic target for generating electricity from wind may only be 25%. This amount of electricity might potentially contribute to a total from renewable sources as follows:

Propane	40-50% replaced with Bio-Gas	(10% of total energy use)
Electricity	25% from Wind Power	(5% of total)
White diesel	100% replaced by Bio-Diesel	(5% of total)
Red diesel	10% replaced with Bio-Diesel	(3% of total)

The example above would make 23% of our energy use renewable. However, we also have other ideas such as burning wood for combined heat and power (CHP), or ground source heat pumps, that could take us to 25%. Of course we do not know if this is the exact mix of renewables that we will be able to achieve. This depends on what we can afford and what we are allowed to develop.

Great news

We now have planning permission to install a solar tracker. This will be the first ever web-linked tracker in the county. Read more...

We also have signed up to Ecotricity, a renewable electricity company. In one simple step we cut 33% off our Carbon Footprint from energy, because the power from Ecotricity is carbon-free. Read more...

This makes a big difference to our sustainability - but we aim to do more, and we are still working on our main ideas... wind energy, biogas from a digestor unit, ground source heat, solar electric, biodiesel, and combined heat and power. 

What do you think?

Please contact us with your ideas for:

• what our sustainable energy targets should be
• how we can make a difference
• developing energy while protecting the local environment

 

To let us know what you think, simply type a message at our 'contact us' page. Before you click ‘send message’ be sure to select the Conservation department. Thank you.