This trial started in July 2012 and ended recently – 19 farmers who had bought a Varivac control system at the 2012 National Fieldays.
As part of the trial they agreed to make information about their energy costs available and keep specific information for ECCA. The incentive negotiated with Corkill Systems was that if the claims made by them were proved correct each farmer would get a 33% refund on their purchase price of the Varivac from EECA.
The trial was run and supervised by EECA industrial project manager Kirk Archibald. The farms were in Taranaki, Waikato, Canterbury, Southland and Nelson. Information supplied from each farm to keep comparisons equitable were three years power accounts, cow numbers and production.
With the historical information and readings from the inbuilt meters in the Varivac the advantages quickly became obvious.
“Often we have to rely solely on billing data to calculate energy savings, however with the Varivac’s inbuilt meters we could access robust savings data that we will publish in the coming months” said Archibald.
One farmer in the trial saved 73% of his vacuum pump electricity costs after installing the Varivac vacuum pump controller meaning he is only using 27% of the electricity for his vacuum pump that he was previously using.
Corkill Systems will be showing their Varivac vacuum pump systems, lobe pumps and milk pump controller at the National Fieldays.
Tel. 06 751 7531
