Timber River Preps For Transition To 100-Per-Cent Renewable Power
SACKVILLE – Timber River Eco Farms is planning to become 100-per-cent powered by the sun this summer.
In a call with Huddle, Operations Manager Jonathan Kummer confirmed plans to transition entirely to solar-generated electricity to power the family-owned farm’s operations.
“We have the same power load, but the first solar project was roughly 40 per cent of the electricity we use for the year,” Kummer said of a previous solar array the farm had built in 2021.
“Instead of diving head-first, we wanted to test it out and went live in March 2021,” Kummer said.
Timber River started with an 18-kilowatt, 96-panel solar electric system that produced about 40-per-cent of the farm’s power.
The solar array was connected to the grid, which supplemented power, when the farm’s demand was too great for the solar-generated electricity to meet demand on its own.
“My dad and I were driving by the solar panels every day, seeing it running and thought, ‘We’ve got it here, why don’t we try to go the full way?’” said Kummer.
Kummer credited the Saint John-based Smart Energy Company, which sold the solar equipment to the Timber River.
This past winter, Kummer said he reached out to them and confirmed it would only take another 32 kilowatts – two 16-kilowatt units – to completely power the farm.
To get to 100-per-cent solar, Kummer said there will need to be another 72 panels installed, with a 200-foot solar array on the property when all is said and done.
“The Smart Energy Company developed this interesting package that’s designed toward farms, called ‘Solar in a Box,” where they ship components – the panels and frames – and hardware and we’re going to get contractors to put posts in the ground,” he said.
“Our team [is] going to mount the frame and panels and assembly ourselves. The Smart Energy Company will finish the electrical hookup and tie it into the warehouse and inverters, et cetera. For a couple of days this summer, we’re going to get to be solar installers, which is kind of cool.”
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Demand volume varies at Timber River. While Kummer didn’t have an exact figure for how much power the farm uses, he said demand varies widely throughout the year – depending on everything from the weather to how many potatoes they harvest and need to package.
“Based on the weather, we have very different electricity draws every month. Another component is when we package the potatoes. All the equipment for washing and drying and sorting and packaging; all those motors require a significant component of the power we draw on,” he said.
“Depending on how many potatoes we have in a given year, it could be more or less in a certain month. That will create a difference in power use for that month.”
Kummer said one of the main draws of power is the warehouse’s cooling system, where potatoes are cooled and kept from overheating.
“There’s a certain power load you need to keep potatoes – you need to maintain the interior of the warehouse bins,” he said.
Kummer said there’s a satisfaction and anticipation seeing the solar panels operating, knowing how integral they are and will be to the operation.
“It’s a cool feeling in the summer when you walk by the array and can hear the inverters humming when the sun is out and there’s no cloud cover,” he said.
This milestone comes a little over a year-and-a-half after Kummer and his wife Emily Ryan transplanted to southeastern New Brunswick from Halifax to help run the 800-acre farm with Kummer’s parents.
With the snowy past winter and the cool, wet start to spring so far, Kummer said the outlook, at the moment, is good for a productive growing season this year.
“It’s too early in the season to tell where things will go, but everything is still alright for now. It’ll be trickier if the wetter weather continues into May,” he said.
“The newest and most interesting thing on the horizon when in farming, is how the spring and summer will roll out every year. You don’t know what the year will be like, every year is different – and that’s going to keep us on our toes.”
The Port Elgin-area farm is known for its Eco-Spud line of potatoes – a brand that includes the FABULA, a later-maturing potato species with 30-per-cent fewer carbohydrates than the average potato. When they transitioned to their work with Timber River, Kummer and Ryan redesigned the bangs the farm’s potatoes are sold in, making them 100-per-cent compostable.
Sam Macdonald is a Huddle reporter in Moncton. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].