NFU Energy Service Customer Stories

Customer Story

Name: Edward Backhouse, C.S. Backhouse

Region: Goole, Yorkshire

Sector: Potatoes and arable crops, including oilseed rape and wheat

Energy Use: C.S. Backhouse had installed two 500kW straw burning biomass boilers at two sites for drying grain and heating farm buildings, including the farmhouse. Since working with NFU Energy, they upgraded one of the 500kW boilers to 1MW one.

Requirement: Edward felt that his straw boilers (despite being newly installed) were underperforming in terms of efficiency and heat production. He contacted James Copeland from the NFU for advice. James provided him with contact details for NFU Energy and recommended he spoke to Jon Swain.

What happened? Jon visited the site to assess the boilers and found that they were underperforming. The report and recommendations, provided by Jon, enabled Edward to resolve the problem by replacing one of the 500kW boilers with a 1MW boiler to achieve the correct level of heat and efficiency. NFU Energy also handles the RHI Accreditations for the site.

“After chatting with Jon, I was confident that he was the right person to help us. He understood how the systems had been put together and how they should be improved. Jon has been invaluable in ensuring our new boiler is the right solution for us.”

Edward Backhouse, C.S. Backhouse Ltd

Customer Story

Name: Jake Rice, Strawson Ltd.

Region: Newark, Nottinghamshire

Sector: Vegetable producer (leeks, carrots, potatoes, parsnips)

Energy Use: The site has a main office block, student accommodation house, 13 potato stores, a grain store, a packing shed, various workshops and an irrigation pump house. Electricity use amounts to 4.23 million kWh (£360,000) a year.

Requirement: Strawson Ltd. wanted to reduce energy cost as an overhead to the business and improve their understanding of energy consumption. Jake used NFU Energy to carry out an on-site energy efficiency audit through E.ON, their energy supplier. 

What happened? NFU Energy engineer Jim Allen visited the site to assess the areas of primary energy use and advise where they could become more energy efficient and save money. Jake received an action list detailing the areas of energy use where he could make improvements and the associated potential cost savings. These totalled £38,000 a year and included:

• Compressed air control and leak detection – a potential saving of £5,000 a year.
• Voltage optimisation – a potential saving of £5,000 per year.
• Lighting upgrades – a potential saving of £4,000 per year.
• Fan improvements – a potential saving of £4,000 per year.

Customer Story

Name: Guy Poskitt, MH Poskitt

Region: Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire

Sector: Vegetable producer (carrots, parsnips, swedes, potatoes and pumpkins)

Energy Use: MH Poskitt Limited is a family owned business that specialises in root vegetable growing in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Throughout the year they produce over:

• 50,000 tonnes of carrots
• 9,000 tonnes of parsnips
• 5,000 tonnes of swedes
• 2,000 tonnes of potatoes
• 50,000 pumpkins

On site they have an AD plant that produces biogas for their 250kW Combined Heat and Power (CHP) unit.

They also have solar panels that produce just under 50kW of power.

Requirement: Guy Poskitt contacted us as they were planning to build an AD and needed assistance with their Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed-in Tariff (FiT) applications.

What happened? The first job was to secure a Preliminary FiT tariff and once construction neared completion in 2015 we got to work with a visit to the site to ensure that the metering had been installed correctly, to meet the standard that Ofgem require for the RHI and FiT applications. Our next step was submitting full FiT and RHI applications to secure the best possible tariffs available. After regular correspondence with Ofgem answering queries during the review process, the FiT accreditation was awarded on 26 January 2016 and the RHI was accredited on the 06 June 2016, so both income streams were secured within a year.

MH Poskitt is now fully account managed by us, which means we manage many of the company’s energy activities such as:

• Ongoing RHI and FiT claims - ensuring that the regular payments keep coming in and any mandatory reporting is submitted to Ofgem to remain compliant
• Their export contract, known as a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for the excess electricity the AD produces that is not used on site
• Import electricity contracts for all of the supplies on their farms