Energy savings for Bundaberg farmers no longer a pipe dream

August 2021

Since 1946, the Cayley family farm in Bundaberg, Queensland has grown a variety of fresh goods, including sugarcane, peanuts, asparagus, watermelon and potatoes that are used in Australia’s beloved Smith’s chips.

A comprehensive audit on the farm was conducted by the Bundaberg Regional Irrigators Group, in conjunction with Bundaberg Sugar Services, to understand energy use in the irrigation systems and identify opportunity for process optimisation.

The audit identified a range of opportunities for the Cayley family farm to lower energy use and enhance the farm’s resilience to variable climatic conditions. Replacing over 500m of irrigation piping to reduce water distribution friction losses and undertaking extensive weather and soil analysis to determine optimal irrigation scheduling resulted in a 42 per cent reduction in energy consumption per tonne of sugarcane harvested.

These energy efficiency measures have resulted in annual savings of over $40,000 from reduced energy and labour costs and increased yields.

The Bundaberg Regional Irrigators Group has leveraged the Cayley family farm’s success story by sharing the knowledge gained with their network of member farms that account for approximately 36,000ha in the local area, and operate an estimated 1,100 energy intensive irrigation pumps.

Find this case study on page 22 of Navigating a dynamic energy landscape: a briefing for farms.