We all know the problem by now: rising energy costs. In addition, the energy grid is also overloaded in various places. Especially companies that consume a lot of electricity and gas notice this the most when they have to pay their bill at the end of the month. This is a big problem for growers and farmers. Even solar panels can sometimes cost money due to a feed-in tariff on electricity. That is why we, together with the LLTB, have created a benchmarking platform for growers and farmers. In addition, we also work with DuurzameTechniek, with which we have created a platform to better monitor electricity and gas consumption in buildings.
The Benchmark Platform
Comparing gas and electricity consumption is often very difficult. This is no different for farmers and growers. It often happens that different companies use different sorting machines, lighting, or heating, for example. This all affects the final gas and electricity consumption. To accurately compare this with each other, we have developed the benchmark platform together with the LLTB. This platform allows you to anonymously compare your consumption with other growers or farmers, while you can see exactly which devices they use. All levels of consumption can be seen in this platform: from total overviews to plant or animal level. The consumption is even converted to the unit that is sold, such as per kg of milk for dairy farms. This way, you gain clear insight into which energy-saving measures you can still take to reduce your consumption and thus save costs.
The aim of the benchmark platform is to encourage more collaboration in energy saving. Even though the platform is anonymous, users can learn from each other by comparing. An example of this is how a dairy farmer is unsure whether to replace his milking robot with a new model. However, this dairy farmer does not know if it is worth purchasing this new, more efficient milking robot. Will this dairy farmer actually recoup his money from this investment? To answer this question, this dairy farmer uses the benchmark platform. He sees that other dairy farmers in the area consume much less energy with this new model. Therefore, the investment will be worth it for this dairy farmer. This is how the benchmark platform works in practice. A collaboration to reduce energy consumption, even though it is anonymous!