Since its installation in late 2017, a TRiiiON 40 unit has been successfully empowering Sutton Grange Organic Farm, the proud producers of Holy Goat Cheese, which were honoured on Aug 13, 2018 as Delicious.com’s Produce awards - Producer of the Year.
For the last 17 year, partners Carla Meurs and Ann-Marie Monda have been dedicated to growing their farm and business in sustainability, quality and generosity. “We strive for our land to be well, our people to feel valued, inspired & rewarded and to grow through sharing our knowledge and challenges with others”.
Looking to improve the farm’s efficiency, productivity and resilience, Carla and Ann-Marie started by upgrading the dairy, while looking for alternatives to enable an industrial 13.5kw, 3 phase pot washer. “Since the establishment of the farm, staff would spend 4-6 hours every day sterilising our cheese forms, racks and buckets by hand, using a great deal of water, energy and time... This was a staff well-being issue as well as productivity.”
“We love our new pot washer...” The cost of running such a washer via an onsite 3-phase generator would have been extortionate, not to mention the noise and air pollution involved. A different, single-phase washer would have consumed much higher energy, causing their electricity bill to substantially increase.
Image - Staff and Goats. (rights reserved)
Not less important was a robust solution to the threat of power outages. “We knew that a long power outage would leave us in a disastrous scenario. Our goats would suffer, they need to be milked twice a day, our cheese requires very fine temperature control at all times, including refrigeration for mature stock”.
Together with partners, the project included a TRiiiON 40 unit (capable of growing up to 60kw to support future plans), works to upgrade the electrical infrastructure and integration with a backup diesel generator via automated change over mechanism.
“When the power went out for 29 hours earlier this year, we truly appreciated the smooth automated change over to the diesel generator and then back to the TRiiiON unit”.
While the solution at Sutton Grange has been quietly delivering the planned benefits for the last 9 months, the TRiiiON team hasn’t sat idle and have been working with Carla, Ann-Marie and TRiiiON’s partners on additional energy improvement initiatives to renewables, hot water and power bills.