It’s been one year since TRiiiON installed their 60kVA 3 phase converter at the ADFG (*1) dairy farm in Drumborg, allowing for a doubling milking production and improvement of milk quality at a fraction of the cost of alternative solutions.
The farm, bought by the ADFG in 2015, is serviced by 2 x 20kVA SWER (*2) transformers which were frequently overloaded, resulting in blackouts and preventing the dairy from reaching growth targets. Key machinery (1-phase motors) supporting milking was electrically interlocked and could not operate concurrently, impacting dairy operations sequencing and efficiency. The single phase power line supporting the farm was simply insufficient, and the ADFG began searching for a 3 phase solution.
Image (2 x 20kVA SWER transformers)
The installation of the TRiiiON 60 unit was selected as the optimal choice by SW Dairy Farms management. In comparison, a 3 phase power line upgrade was found to be prohibitively expensive, and an on-site 3 phase generator would not only be cost-ineffective, but also environmentally-unfriendly and a source of noise and air pollution.
Since installing the TRiiiON 60 unit, the farm’s energy consumption per comparable workload had been reduced substantially. This increase in efficiency has allowed for concurrent operation of key now 3 phase workloads, as well as the addition of new workloads, such as bore water pumps.
A two-year business case revealed that the TRiiiON unit would save the ADFG over A$20k in Year one, breaking even in Year two, and saving over A$200k over five years when compared with installing an on-site generator.
Image (TRiiiON electrical boards Setup - 1 cable in, 1 cable out)
In addition to these monetary savings, the TRiiiON 3 phase technology has allowed for maximising the utilisation of available power, whereas before buffers were required on the single phase power supply to enable start-up of the next big workload.
The new system is much more reliable than before, as the transformers running on single phase power were frequently overloaded by high inrush 1-phase motors, resulting in blackouts lasting several hours, impacting farm operations. Since migrating the dairy to the TRiiiON solution, the transformer service fuses have not once blown.
Finally, TRiiiON’s simple farm-gate “set and forget” device requires only periodic air filter cleaning and generates clean, quiet and efficient energy with no reliance on potentially hazardous fuels, as opposed to a diesel generator which requires on-going cumbersome handling, refuelling & support.
(1) ADFG - Australian Dairy Farms Group
(2) SWER - Single Wire Earth Return