Agricultural Solar Power Systems
Installing agricultural solar power systems can make perfect sense for agricultural businesses and farms, where a lot of power is consumed during daylight hours. In many cases, using solar for farms can be another way to increase
Often things like dairy machinery, refrigeration, irrigation pumps, heating, or lighting can make the initial investment in a solar power system well worthwhile.
%
Return On Investment*
+ 5 Year Payback*
*Sunergy Solar commercial and agricultural solar power installations often generate a return of around 20% PA, which allows them to effectively pay for themselves within as little as 5 years.
Ask us what return you could expect from your site!
Does your farm or agricultural business have a moderate to heavy daytime power consumption? If so, with solar you’ll often gain a significant return on investment achieved through savings on daytime energy expenditure.
Some of our agricultural solar installations are achieving power bill savings big enough to effectively pay for themselves within as little as 5 years.
Invest Now!
The sooner you invest, the sooner the returns and greater the savings. Once it’s paid for itself—ongoing FREE power!
We give you an expected ROI by analysing your site, using NIWA’s historical sunshine data, and current energy prices.
These graphs show an expected return and payback projection based on a 4.16kW system, saving $0.30c per kWh of grid supply.
The sooner you go solar, the greater the return ~ so why hold off on a good investment?
With the solar technology available today, it has become economically viable—and even profitable—to install solar power for many businesses, farms, schools and homes.
Solar Photo Voltaic (PV) systems are cost effective, easy to install and do not require resource or building consent, making them the clear contender for domestic and commercial auxiliary energy production both now and in the future.
Still have questions? Give us a call!
Accurate, Customised Data Prediction
In order to design the optimal system, we analyse your site, your power consumption and even the way your farm operates. To do this we collect real-time, local data on sunshine hours, angles, etc., to best position and spec the array and system. Our experience and the data technology we use enable us to give an accurate projection on performance metrics—so you can make an informed decision and, if you decide to go solar, we’ll be able to design the optimal system.
Actual Data Example
This graph shows actual results on a dairy farm we installed in Canterbury.
Light orange (left) was our prediction,
Dark orange & lined (right) was actual production—averaging just above predicted.
Dark orange (right lower) was actual consumption—lower than production.
(click graph to enlarge)
In this case, solar production was greater each month than power consumed, resulting in maximum energy bill savings, plus a supplementary income from power exported to the grid.
How Agricultural Solar works
Stay Connected to the Grid
Agricultural facility solar systems are still connected to the grid, like normal home solar, but are larger—normally at least 10kW, or as much as several hundred kW’s—depending on the size and power demand of the farm. The solar array provides power during daylight hours, with any shortfall and nigh-time demand met by grid supply.
Custom Designed
We design the system size and configuration specifically for your site based on a comprehensive analysis of your power usage and site aspect factors.
Optimisation
We then provide ongoing monitoring of your power use and the PV panel production to further analyse and see if there are ways to shift load to make the most of the production curve of the solar system.
Flexible Finance
Own it—with or without finance, lease it, or just purchase the power on a supply plan. Whichever way you go, you’ll be saving a lot on power bills—and ‘plowing that back into the ground’!
How Agricultural Solar is Financed
$0
OUTLAY
MAXIMUM
SAVINGS
The choice is yours
Choose no upfront cost, or invest in maximised savings
Are you concerned that the capital invested on a solar installation would provide better returns if it was invested directly into your farm? We can power your farm with no upfront cost to you, or help you make the most of longer term savings.
Three supply options for better capital investment
We offer three supply options to offset any burden of capital investment in different situations.
You can choose to finance your solar power system by: Purchase Outright, Lease, or PPA (Power Purchase Agreement). Pros and cons for each are below. And talk to us—we’ll work with you to establish which is going to be the best option for your farm or agricultural business.
Purchase
Purchasing the system outright is the most straightforward option and yields the greatest potential gains. You pay upfront for the entire agricultural solar PV system. Any finance is arranged by you, or Sunergy can provide finance .
ADVANTAGES
- Effectively have a free electricity supply once the system is paid off
- Maximise return if not utilising a “middle man” financier
Obtain the best pricing by paying upfront - The system is depreciable at circa 17% P.A. providing a good tax credit
- Retain control of your system as the energy market, power prices and technology changes
DISADVANTAGES
- Upfront capital expense
- Finance costs if borrowing is required
- Any opportunity cost of what else might be achieved if the capital was invested elsewhere
Lease
The Agricultural Solar PV system is funded via our Lease Company and a contract is entered into in the same way you would lease a vehicle.
The term and monthly payments are negotiable as is the option to lease to buy,
ADVANTAGES
- No upfront capital cost
- The lease is a fixed cost every month, not affected by power production or usage
- Lease payments are a deductible expense just like your monthly power bill
- You effectively lock in or hedge the cost of a portion of your power for the term of the lease
DISADVANTAGES
- You do not retain ownership of the asset
- Overall savings will never equal that of an outright purchase
- You are committed to the installed technology for the term of the lease
Power Purchase Agreement
A Power Purchase Agreement is where the Agricultural solar PV system is installed on a property or building but does not belong to the occupier/property owner, nor does the occupier/property owner have any control over it.
The power produced by the solar PV system is sold to the occupier of the property, usually at a reduced rate compared to what their existing retailer is charging. There are several ways of invoicing each month, which are negotiable to suit, but essentially a PPA is a contract to purchase power from one supplier at an agreed rate, usually with price increases built in, for a long term.
ADVANTAGES
- No upfront capital cost
- PPA power bill is a deductible expense just like your monthly power bill
- You effectively lock in or hedge the cost of a portion of your power
- The supplier bears maintenance and insurance costs
DISADVANTAGES
- You are paying a premium to cover the cost of administering the PPA
- Depending on the contract entered into, the price of power produced may go up
- You are locked in regardless of what happens to the energy industry
- You have no control over the asset
- Regardless of what energy saving measures you initiate, you still pay per kWh of power produced/used so you will likely not maximise savings or self-generated consumption
- What happens in the event the supplier closes down or liquidates?
Not sure? Get in touch to discuss which option could make solar a viable option for your farm.
Some of our Agricultural solar Installations
Farmer Feedback
Raine Farms & Oaklands Milk
☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
Raine Farms and Oaklands Milk operate a dairy and associated processing factory to supply over 2,000,000 l of fresh pasteurised milk to the Nelson/Marlborough regions.
We have enjoyed working with Sunergy to solve our decarbonisation goals by replacing all fossil fuels with Solar energy.
Julian
Raine Farms, Oaklands Milk
Domett Farms Ltd
☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
We are “over the moon” with our new Sunergy Solar system. It has completely exceeded our expectations and some, the system runs the 132kw irrigation pump effortlessly and with power to spare pumping up to 240 litres per second.
The whole Sunergy team put in a lot of effort to get this large install off the ground, and they never failed to impress. They were extremely professional, their passion and enthusiasm is infectious, we are so thrilled with the array of panels and look forward to the ongoing savings.
We have had and continue to have a lot of interest from locals and the wider community.
Thank you so much Andy, Dan and the whole Sunergy Solar Team.
Domett Farms Ltd - Slim & Janina Slee
Oamaru
Tony Marriot
☀️☀️☀️☀️☀️
Hi to the team at Sunergy,
Just to let you know I’m loving the new solar and it’s working very well, the guys have done an excellent job with my installation, they went to great lengths designing and orientating the panels to look their best on my roof. So well in fact this month I produced 60 KWH more than NIWA’s Solar estimation for May.
Sunergy clearly care that I received a great product and at a great price, plus the upgraded thin, strengthened panels were a real bonus, to date they have been getting plenty of praise from neighbours and friends.
I’m so pleased with the whole process that I’m happy to recommend Sunergy to others.
Thanks again guys
Tony
Find out how solar can work for your farm
Book an in-depth free assessment of your farm and situation. We use real, accurate data to help you make an informed decision. Start saving on power bills sooner!