Lycopodium was accepted onto the Victorian Government’s Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions (DJPR) energy expert panel to help deliver the Agriculture Energy Investment Plan (AEIP) with Agriculture Victoria (AgVic) as the lead government organisation in charge of running the program.
Lycopodium provided primary producers, DJPR and AgVic independent expert advice on energy efficiency and clean energy generation opportunities by way of on-farm energy assessments.\
The AEIP made available $20 million in Government grants to support initiatives identified through the assessment process. Such initiatives seek to improve on-farm energy efficiency and productivity by boosting the efficiency of current and future operations or facilitating on site renewable energy generation capacity.
Audits were conducted across a wide variety of farms including dairy farms, various ornamental plant farms, chickens, cherries, tomatoes, potatoes, fruit orchards, wineries, trout farms, a green tea farm and a turf business.
Having faced increasing electricity prices over the past 20 years, many farmers are already experts at keeping their operations efficient in order to extract the most economical returns. It is in the more complex areas of equipment and controls upgrades, renewable energy, waste to energy, energy recovery and process optimisation on which they required specialist advice. A significant amount of Lycopodium’s primary producer clients have applied for and received grants for projects that were proposed and scoped by Lycopodium throughout the 2.5-year engagement.
