We had a very interesting workshop at Kirkbampton last night with the help of Mike Bond of NFU Energy and farmer, Vaughan Hodgson.  The key message was that farmers should reduce their energy use as much as possible before investing in renewables and assess the payback period which will depend on the farm’s energy requirements and when the energy is needed.  Vaughan Hodgson’s farm includes broiler and arable enterprises and he recently installed a 120Kwh roof mounted Solar PV which so far has reduced his electricity requirements by around 25-30%; however, he has had issues with Electricity North West restricting the amount of energy he can export onto the grid and is now interested in the potential for battery storage.

We also discussed the Energy Bills Support scheme with the 30 farmers at the meeting saying they had not yet seen the discount on their business’ bills. Mike Bond showed an example bill where the discount had been applied and we recommend you check with your energy supplier.  For more info, go to: Energy Bill Discount Scheme.