Load Management Can Save Farmers Money By Joe Henggeler, PhD

Just as farmers seek ways to cut their production costs, energy companies are also looking for cost-cutting practices.   In energy load management programs, both parties can end up doing this. Energy companies face the problem that power consumption by customers is never steady throughout the day. There are certain parts of the day when customers use more energy, called peak loads. And just like the city which has to construct and maintain road networks large enough to handle rush hour traffic, utility companies have to invest in generating and grid capacity to handle these peak loads.

Energy companies are oftentimes willing to sell energy at cheaper rates, if the customer agrees to help out by refraining from drawing energy during these peak use periods. Reducing the peak by balancing out customer energy consumption during the day leads to lower capital costs for energy companies. Peak energy loads occur in the summer during the heat of the day when air conditioning use is at its highest, around 4 to 8 PM.

However, besides differences in diurnal use patterns, there are seasonal energy use patterns, also. Since the summer time is the biggest user of electricity, reducing energy loads during the other seasons is not nearly important to a utility, and thus there would probably be few load management programs outside of summer.

A couple of farming activities that are big energy users for local utility companies are irrigation pumping and crop drying. Of the two, irrigation would probably be of more interest to utilities since it occurs in full summer. However, crop drying that occurs in late summer still might qualify in load management programs.

SEMO Electric Coop in Sikeston, MO has about half of its 1135 irrigation accounts using load management. Irrigators in the program are not able to irrigate during the 4-hour peak period all week during July and August. This is managed by a circuit board timer installed in the control panel that turns off units around 4 PM, and then back on four hours later at 8 PM. The actual cut-off and re-start time is staggered among the 500 plus pumps in a 45-minute time band to avoid power surges. The financial incentive results in a 30 to 60% savings. Load management would save the typical farmer who flood irrigates about $16,000 and the pivot irrigator (who uses smaller pump sizes) about $8,000

The Ozark Border Electric Coop in Poplar Bluff has about 93% of their 2,614 irrigation accounts participating in their load reduction program. The program cuts pivot energy costs 30% and flood energy costs a whopping 78%.

If a farmer is a heavy electric energy user, load management incentives are worth exploring with his electric utility company. However, not every coop provides the load reduction program. Check with yours to see if they do.    Kansas City Power & Light, Columbia Water and Light, and Ameren, as well as the following electric cooperatives have load management programs of some sort: Boone, Crawford, Grundy, Laclede, Macon, Osage Valley, and United Electric.

Joe Henggeler, PhD
University of Missouri Delta Center