Tallemenco saves $1/2 Million in Annual Pumping Energy Costs

Testing pumps is an important part of measuring pumping energy savings. Here, Tallemenco’s Rob Welke tests a 1,500 l/s pump in the Riverland of SA.

Tallemenco’s recent audit on an irrigated farm in Victoria has taken Tallemenco’s annual achievable pumping electricity costs savings to $750,000 for Australian irrigators since 2012.

Not only has this saved our planet from between 4,000 and 5,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually from our atmosphere, but it has been achieved with an average Return on Investment (ROI) of approx 2 yrs.

The audit, carried out to AS 3598 Type 2 through Sustainability Victoria, identified $60,000 achievable annual electricity savings from the farm’s $133,000 annual pumping costs.

How is such a high percentage of savings possible? Rob Welke, Tallemenco’s Managing Director, says from experience that, whereas most low head pumping system energy savings come from optimising farm irrigation system hydraulics, on this farm it was almost all attributed to poorly selected pumps.

Nine out of the ten pumps were operating at a duty well below the end of their pump curve, and the remaining pump was operating too far up on its pump curve.

The ultimate solution for the irrigator was to convert some of the $60,000 energy efficiency savings into additional pump station flow.

This was done by slowing most pumps with VSD’s so they operated near their BEP, but the largest pump (400 l/s) upgraded with a larger motor and VSD and speeded up to 55Hz so that it operated near its BEP. The CAPEX required to potentiate the energy savings was estimated at $140,000.

This resulted in a final pumping energy saving of 30% ($43,000pa) but an increase of pump station flow output by 30%.

This in turn had a farm productivity flow on of approx $1m per annual.

Tallemenco also runs frequent “Advanced Pumping & Hydraulics” and “Advanced Pumping System Design” training courses, both online and Face2Face for irrigators around Australia and New Zealand. Both these courses are endorsed by Irrigation Australia for Professional Development.

Much of Rob’s training material comes from his pumping energy audit field experiences, empowering his course participants to identify their own on-farm energy savings.