A Woodville, Tararua dairy farmer is halving his dairy shed power bill with a solar power system he will pay for in six years. And it has no batteries. Peter Burke reports.

Getting mains power to remote stock troughs can run to $80,000 a kilometre, says solar power specialist Alastair Frizzell, of Frizzell Agricultural Electronics, of Kirwee, Canterbury.

Farmers installing solar power can now get a better return from it than from farming itself, a solar power installer claims.

The development of a solar powered pumping system has opened up possibilities for farmers looking for a guaranteed water supply to outlying areas of the farm, which are often not connected to the national grid.

A solar water pump system is helping get much needed water to stock on remote hill country farms and has captured international interest from water-stressed countries.

Using solar energy to partly power farm irrigation systems may be now within the reach of Australian dairy farmers, according to a new report.

Until recently alternative energy was a niche market, normally talked about by people who had goatee beards and wore sandals with white socks. How times change. 

MERIDIAN ENERGY and Westpac have joined forces to produce a ‘package’ to dairy farmers in particular to invest in solar power in their dairy sheds. The deal will officially launched at Fieldays this week.