Farms, like all businesses, can spend a significant amount of money on energy.

Whether you are a dairy farmer, pig farmer, poultry farmer or even in horticulture, energy used for lighting, space heating, water heating and other areas such as milking, cooling and water pumping can make up a large proportion of operating costs.

More efficient

As a farmer, you can make your business more efficient and resilient to rising energy costs.

Start by making a few simple changes to how and where you use energy.

Once you complete these low-cost measures, you may have to invest in some new controls or other technologies to deliver further savings. The SEAI can provide you with advice on how to do this.

There may also be grants available for your farm or household to reduce the cost and help with that initial financial burden associated with the new piece of equipment.

What can you do to reduce your energy costs? Here are the top ten areas to focus on.

1. Understand your own energy use

Where are the major areas of energy use on your farm?

Walk around your farm and identify where energy is being used.

Remember to check at different times of day, to account for variation between day and evening/night time use.

Prepare a checklist and look at lighting, heating systems, ventilation, water heating, and milk cooling and pumps if appropriate. Monitor over a period of a week so that you get accurate average figures.

2. Switch suppliers

Switching electricity suppliers is one of the quickest ways of reducing your costs.

Ring around or go online to check the deals available from alternative suppliers.

3. Insulation

Adding or improving your insulation can have a significant impact on the energy costs and comfort in both homes and farm buildings.

For example, upgrading loft insulation in the family home from 100mm to 300mm will save €250 a year on a typical annual bill of €1,600. SEAI offers grants to insulate your home, as well as grants to upgrade home heating solutions. Check on the status of your hot water tank insulation too: upgrading this could save you €130 a year.

4. Heating and hot water

Consider getting a new boiler or heat pump if your existing one is old: a modern condensing boiler can reduce energy bills by 25% and save €400 a year in a typical farm house.

Alternatively, regularly servicing your boiler can save as much as €160 on typical annual heating costs of €1,600.

And don’t forget the simple things: bleeding radiators, checking boiler timers and setting your heating controls to a comfortable temperature.

5. Controls

There are several different types of heating controllers, but essentially they all regulate and help to control the temperature of your heating and ultimately your heating costs. This applies whether it’s your farm house, your piggery or poultry house.

6. Lighting

You can save up to 80% by picking the right lighting for the job. LEDs are the most efficient.

For example, replacing a 500-watt halogen floodlight with a 150 LED lamp will save €128 a year and it lasts 100 times longer.

7. Ventilation

Better controls, more efficient air movement and less reliance on mechanical systems can all help to save money on ventilation costs.

Make sure that fans and ducts are regularly maintained and kept clean to maximise efficiency.

In pig farms, a 40% improvement in energy efficiency can be achieved through more effective controls and routine maintenance of the ventilation system.

This can result in saving €4/finished pig/year in an integrated unit.

8. Milk cooling

Choosing a correctly sized plate heat exchanger can reduce your energy costs for cooling milk by up to 50%, which can give a saving of €9/cow/year.

Use of water to pre-cool the milk before it enters the tank will save about 30% of milk cooling costs – an energy saving of €5/cow/year.

9. Vacuum pumps

Install a variable speed drive to the vacuum pump in the milking parlour.

It can give you a 60% reduction in pump running costs, equivalent to €4/cow/year.

10. Renewable energy

Once you have taken steps to minimise your energy use through energy efficiency measures, the next step is to consider using some renewable energy system (solar panels for example) for water heating or wood chip/pellet boiler for space heating.

As well as reducing emissions, such as CO², they are cheaper to run and offer significant cost savings.