Sustainability & Green Practices

To sustain our farm we use solar power to help provide electricity. Alfalfa is planted for both grazing and hay, which naturally puts nitrogen back into the ground. The alfalfa also acts as a water filter, improving water quality and reducing erosion.  Our pond is also surrounded by pasture and hay which filters rain and keeps our pond water cleaner and the pond from silting in.  We also maintain a tree line along our creek for erosion control and to give the cows and calves shade. Keeping the density of animals low allows us to reduce methane emissions per acre as well as preventing animal health issues associated with overcrowding.

To sustain our farm we use solar power to decrease the cost of our electrical usage.  We installed a 2,400 watt solar photovoltaic (PV) system in April 2007 on the roof of our Hay Shed. 

The system consists of 14 Panels.  Each 2 foot by 5 foot panel acts like a battery and generates Direct Current.  The result is 240volts of DC, 10 amps of DC current and 2,400watts of DC power.

The electric company provides: 240volts of Alternating Voltage and as much AC current as the service, which in our case is 200 amps  (AC) and 48,000 watts of AC Power.)  Some items, like a hot water heater and an oven use 240 volts of AC and other items, like lights, TV, radios, etc. use 120 volts AC.

Since the Solar system produces DC and the farm uses AC, a device called an “inverter” is used to convert the solar DC to AC to operate the various appliances.

The electric company’s electric  meter keeps track of how much electricity it provides the farm and how much electricity the solar system makes available to the electric company.

The electric company pays for the farm’s excess energy by reducing the farm’s bill by the cost of electricity the solar system made available to the electric company.

The farm has a small pond and occasionally we use a small Battery operated DC marine bilge pump to provide water pumped from the pond to a cows water tank.

The farm uses some solar systems that are small and operate using batteries and are not connected to the electric company, for example electric fences that define the boundaries of the cows pastures.  These fences provide a slight shock if the cows touch them.  They quickly learn where the fences are and avoid them.  These fences must operate day and night because Deer and other nocturnal animals need to be kept out.  The solar panels for this application are large enough to charge the fence battery for about 2 weeks to cover time when clouds or rain obscure the sun.

A combination of windmills and PV would provide the advantage that at night or in cloudy weather the windmill may be able to supplement PV electricity.