QFF are conducting free energy audits through the QBEST Ag Program to support farms reduce their energy spend. Participating farms can receive an ‘appliance’ energy audit or a ‘whole of farm’ energy audit, dependent on their needs.

• An appliance audit = Pumping system, cold room, heating system (Type 3).
• A whole of farm audit = Farm compound National Metering Identifier (NMI) including packing shed, cold rooms, pumps, water heating etc (Type 2).

An energy audit will help you to understand your energy use patterns and make costed recommendations for energy cost reductions including quick wins.

Eligibility

To participate, farms must:

• be large electricity users with energy consumption greater than 100,000kWh per year on a single NMI (not added up over a few NMIs).
• farm one of the following commodities; sugarcane, cotton, horticulture, nursery, dairy, intensive animals including pork, feedlots, chicken meat, and eggs, grazing, or broadacre cropping.

Specific participation criteria

A participating business must:

• hold an Australian Business Number (ABN) and be registered for GST
• not be a public company within the meaning of the Corporations Act 2001
• have its headquarters in Queensland and be operating from premises in Queensland
• employ at least 2, but no more than 199 full-time (or equivalent) employees (including the business owner) (that is, the business must be a Small-Medium Enterprise (SME)
• energy consumption on a NMI greater than 100MWh per year in a recent year (since 2020).

I want to participate.

Interested farms can contact Andres Jaramillo to express interest in participating.

Phone 07 3837 4737

Email andres@qff.org.au

The QBEST Ag program is being delivered by the Queensland Farmers’ Federation and is funded by the Queensland Government.