CSS Farms’ Castile, NY, farm irrigated their potato crop with a sustainable solar energy storage system from Milton CAT and POWR2. CSS Farms is a multi-state agricultural operation based in Nebraska. Their 65-acre Castile field is only 10 minutes away from the renowned Letchworth State Park and produces potatoes for major chip processors, including Frito-Lay and Wise.
The farm rented a 30kVA Hybrid Energy System (HES) POWRBANK from Milton CAT for the 2021 growing season.
The HES allowed for significant fuel savings as it stored enough power for their pivot irrigator to complete a full 19-hour rotation. Across the entire season, 330.25kwh of solar energy was produced, and the hybrid energy storage system dispatched a total of 145.71kwh. In the rare event that the solar panels were unable to capture enough thermal energy to charge the HES, a CAT rental generator was brought in to bring the battery back up to full capacity.
CSS Irrigation Lead Dan Worden explained, “The diesel savings is huge. It’s two hours of running a generator every once in a while versus the 19 hours we were running it before.” The hands-off remote start process allows Dan to dedicate more time to other essential functions. Maintenance is streamlined through the monitoring portal, where vital data can be accessed in real-time.
In addition to the time and fuel savings, the low emissions hybrid energy storage system offered CSS Farms a competitive edge as many of their customers are taking steps to limit their impact on the environment by requiring their suppliers to run low emissions operations. Contributing to noise pollution is no longer a concern as the HES is inaudible. Milton CAT Power Systems Rental Representative Zach Claus added, “It’s the ideal situation for this unit.” Zach hopes more farms adopt this beneficial technology in the future.
With the help of their solar-powered irrigator, CSS’s 2021 growing season produced 2.3 million pounds of potatoes.
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