The Riverlands Free Range poultry complex in South Australia is the country's biggest free-range chicken farm. Last week, AAM – the investment group that owns the farm – switched on 1.4 MW of solar panels and a 2.28 MWh Tesla lithium-ion battery system.
AAM’s managing director, Garry Edwards, told Beef Central that he believes the energy storage system is the largest of any installed on a commercial farm in the country. And AAM’s Ben Edser told the ABC that the entire energy sustainability project cost close to AUD 5 million (US$3.5 million).
“Before we put the system in, our cost of energy imported from the network was getting toward $1 million,” Edser said.
AAM has also developed its own energy management system.
“Whilst we might be an energy generator at one site, we might be an energy consumer at another,” said Edser. “So, it’s really how we blend and manage that load and use power within the complex, but also taking into account what’s the voltage and what are the network prices doing.”
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