Generators for the Agricultural Industry: From Chickens to Cows to Crops and More
The agriculture industry in the United States is the biggest in the world. While China produces more total food and has the largest agricultural workforce, the US is the world’s largest food exporter ($140 billion in 2017) and does so with a workforce considerably smaller than China’s.
In fact, the US continues to do more with less: Despite having the most arable land of any country – 408 million acres for crop production and 613 million acres grazing land in 2007 – the amount of available farmland is being reduced by 3,000 acres a day due to urban development.
Thanks to economies of scale and more efficient means of production, however, US agriculture continues to expand, producing a trade surplus for over 50 years with products including soybeans, beef, poultry, wheat, dairy, and pork.
As profit margins continue to narrow, reliable and cost-efficient power generators for the agricultural industry – and being able to buy them with confidence – are more important than ever.
The Need to Exceed with Power Generators
Whether you’re talking about continuous or backup power, due to highly automated systems typical for both agriculture and animal management, there’s no room for power supply errors or downtime. At the same time, power generation situations tend toward the extreme, including geographic isolation, arid and/or humid conditions, and large-scale weather events.
For cultivation, generators will likely be moved around on farms on an as-needed basis to power well pumps, irrigation systems, and air compressors. At the same time, they’ll be in contact with water, dirt, and other airborne detritus.
On dairy farms, cows are on a strict, automated milking schedule, and a power outage can cause them to become sick or even die. Plus, milk storage is highly regulated, so constant refrigeration in cold storage warehouses is key for product safety and reduced liability.
Commercial poultry operations will have enormous amounts of birds in confined spaces. For example, as many as 20,000 chickens per building is common, which means lack of proper ventilation can quickly lead to large-scale suffocation.
Biogas Generators for the Agricultural Industry
While diesel generators for the agricultural industry have been the norm for decades, using biogas-powered generators is becoming an increasingly common option. This is due to the fact agricultural operations create a variety of organic waste materials ranging from sileage to manure which, when fermented, produce biogas.
Plus, in the case of commercial livestock operations with thousands of animals, odor is a major concern which can be addressed through biogas production.
Depending on the type of generator being used, though, there are different considerations to keep in mind:
- Diesel: Only dual-mode generators can utilize biogas. Generators up to 200kW are slightly more efficient than gas generators and require a smaller financial investment.
- Gas: Generators with a spark ignition system can run solely on biogas and be used with both very small generator sets (.5 to 10kW) as well as large-scale power plants.
- Gas Turbine: These are typically small generator sets (30 to 75 kW) most often used in the United States due to cost and maintenance requirements. However, they will meet strict emissions guidelines such as those in California.
Increasing prices for fossil fuels, easy availability of organic waste products, and desire to develop renewable energy sources are making biogas generators even more viable.
Combined Heat & Power (CHP) Generators
Biogas also allows for the effective use of combined heat and power (CHP) generators in the agricultural industry: producing both electricity and heat.
A variety of benefits can be achieved through the use of biogas-created power in a CHP system:
- Generates up to 90% efficiency when converting fuel into power and heat
- Produces reliable grid-independent power in remote locations
- Reduces kW per hour operation costs vs. the grid
- Heats air and/or water through heat generated from power production
- Gives farms the ability to sell excess power back to the grid when permitted
- Lowers greenhouse emissions
The American agricultural industry, which has a long history of increasing production rates per acre of arable land, demands continual improvement in areas ranging from fertilizers to animal feed to farming equipment to stay at the forefront of the world market. The same is true for its means of power generation through biogas and CHP systems.
Whether you’re choosing your gen sets from new, used, or surplus available options, you need to buy with confidence, knowing all units are load tested and guaranteed. That means you need to choose Depco Power Systems.
