Fair Cape Dairy is one of countless businesses that have been forced to turn to alternative energy sources, and apart from environmental benefits its renewable energy systems have also begun to make it more competitive.
The dairy was part of a discussion on the private sector’s efforts to curb the impact of load shedding at Western Cape Premier Alan Winde’s Energy Digicon this week.
CEO Melt Loubser said while renewable energy came at great cost, “my experience with renewable energy and the many options that have now become available for energy storage on the grid, and the wheeling of energy, among others, is that it makes financial sense”.
In 2018, Fair Cape decided it needed to become as independent of Eskom as possible. Between 2020 and 2021 work on the company’s 1MW solar power farm started. The facility has generated 3.32GW of power since its inception.
Among the environmental benefits, Fair Cape’s carbon footprint has been significantly reduced by over 1 million kilograms of carbon dioxide – the equivalent of planting more than 38 000 trees.
Loubser said their pivot to renewable energy would not end at solar power.
“We are investigating a biodigester that can deliver power 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is an absolute must,” he said.
A biodigester is a system that biologically digests organic material to produce either fertiliser or biogas. He said the fuel created through this process could be used to power the company’s delivery vehicles.
Premier Winde said in a statement, “The dependence of businesses on diesel to run generators has made many of them less competitive. However, through innovative means like Fair Cape’s exploration into the biogas space, you can grow your competitive edge.”
Loubser said in his experience, financial institutions were willing to finance renewable energy projects.
“Given that you ensure you have the right technology to support the system you choose, my experience is that the projects we are involved in make financial sense, and can also be a way to further diversify the business. The other very important thing is that it must improve input costs and control the things that it has control over. It must minimise waste in all its forms, optimise processes, and ensure it has saved where possible, and refined the data so that it has as close to real time information on which it can act on.”
The dairy operates over 24 hours, seven days a week. Sudden power interruptions not only severely damages its equipment, but also the manufacture of dairy products under sterilised conditions, compromising quality and productivity.
“It can take up to six hours to create sterility in certain processes and at Stage 4 load shedding, this disables these processes. We therefore must run sophisticated generators with change-over technologies to ensure a smooth transition from Eskom during load shedding,” said Loubser.
BUSINESS REPORT