A colleague of the infected Melbourne man who left Sydney on Sunday tested positive, bringing the number of Victorian cases linked to the Sydney outbreak to two.
The country’s largest free-range broiler farm has slashed its electricity bills after installing one of the most extensive solar and battery systems in agriculture.
Ben Edser of AAM, the investment group that owns Riverlands Free Range, said: “Before we installed the system, the cost of energy we imported from the network was close to $1 million.”
“After we made an investment of approximately A$5 million, we have been able to reduce consumption by approximately 70%.”
When chickens are three weeks old, they start to use a ranging area twice the size of the chicken house, at which point they can regulate their body temperature.
“They are super efficient small converters,” said Nathan Morris, who manages AAM’s livestock investment.
“The feed conversion rate of these birds is usually 1.5. So, this means that they eat 1.5 kg of grain protein to add 1 kg of meat.
As the operator of the sales floor of the regional livestock exchange, AAM is better known in cattle and sheep pens.
But it was initially affected by fluctuations in electricity prices, which greatly weakened the profits of this stable income earner and prompted the owners to invest heavily in renewable energy.
With the support of US$1.3 million from the state government, AAM added 1.4 MW of solar panels to the farm shed and installed 5 Tesla batteries.
“As part of installing solar and batteries, we have now reduced 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent,” Mr. Edser said.
“Try to put it in ordinary everyday language, it’s like [cancelling] 1,200 cars or planting 25,000 trees.”
In order to make full use of the new infrastructure, the owner has developed an energy management platform.
“Although we may be energy producers in one location, we may be energy consumers in another location,” Mr. Edser said.
“So, this is actually how we mix and manage loads and use electricity within the complex, while also considering voltage and network prices.”
After months of monitoring and transformation, the raw materials are transformed into nutrient-rich compost, which can then be purchased.
The South Australian winemaker Michael Bruer has sold it, and he spreads the compost in the family’s two organic vineyards.
“We repeated this with a piece of Cabernet Sauvignon, and we will do this with another piece of Cabernet Sauvignon in about three weeks.”
Back where it all started, chicken farm operators are fine-tuning their plans to introduce a similar cost-saving system at their Murray Bridge facility.
“This type of technology can be applied wherever a lot of energy is needed.
We recognize that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the first Australians and traditional guardians of the land where we live, study and work.
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