Renewable Energy

In the summer of 2018 we decided to dip our toes into renewable energy. We along with 2 other neighbors built a solar farm to power our irrigation pumps. Our part of the system is 85 kw of panels which when averaged out over the year will provide 70-80% of our electricity needs for the irrigation pumps. Coupled with the addition of Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) on our irrigation pumps this efficiency is increased even further.

I could go into more details on the project but the article that the Western Producer did on this project says things better than I can.

After the solar project went live we decided to install 550 meters of underground wire from our solar project to the well-house that powers our main well which waters all of the households out at Clear Lake as well as all of our cattle. By doing this we get two main advantages.

• One less power service which is a big advantage as electricity providers charge us $150-200/month just to have the service, with no consideration about if we use the power or not.
• We get to use solar energy to pump water for our cattle all year, increasing the amount of time we are using the renewable energy and the total amount of renewable energy we are using. This is an economic advantage as we get more return by using the power ourselves than we do selling it to the grid.