In Idaho: Saving Water, Energy and Money With the Switch of the Pump

News Nugget

By Courtney Lowery, 7-28-09



	USGS photo.

Interesting piece in the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog today on an initiative in Idaho that pays farmers to shut off their irrigation in the afternoons.

An excerpt:

Some experts say that irrigating in the late afternoons is inefficient anyway, because some of the water will evaporate in the heat of the day. However Sid Erwin, who farms alfalfa and other crops in southern Idaho and is vice president of the Idaho Irrigation Pumpers Association, said that most local farms — including his — ran their pumps 24 hours a day. There is not enough evaporation to justify paying to send a worker to turn off the pumps in the afternoon, he said.

With the power company paying, the calculus changes. Mr. Erwin estimates that he could save upwards of $10,000 from the program — out of a $40,000 annual pumping bill. That, he said, should be enough to “pay a man or two or three men” to make sure the pumps are properly turned off and on.

Click here for the post.

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By Courtney Lowery, 7-28-09 | comments (6) | email story | print story

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Comments

By Nic, 7-28-09

This program and the one from Rocky Mountain Power represent almost 500 MW of dispatchable power. No other states have programs remotely close to this. Rocky Mountain and Idaho Power pay the farmers vs. penalize them.

The concept is not different. The approach is! It is a 2 way system that allows the farmer to shut their pumps off with a smart phone or via the internet and receive notifications if it loses power. Read about the program and features below.

http://www.m2mcomm.com/services/irrigation-load-control.html

This is the smart grid. It uses the cellular network vs. timers that shed power at times when it is needed. It is interactive and allows the farmer to chose when they REALLY need the water (IE when they just fertilized or if they had a pump down earlier in the day).

Idaho is NOT late to the game. They have successfully designed and implemented a program that works WITH the farmer!

By BeWaterWise Rep, 7-29-09

Mandatory conservation is happening in several states – take for example southern California. . If you go to http://tr.im/uzKz, you’ll see how far our water reserve levels have gone down. They have a gauge on the site that looks like the fuel gauge in your car, but with three-color zones: Blue – good, Yellow - not good, and Red – bad. The needle on this gauge is dropping out of the blue zone and heading into the yellow zone which means Mandatory Conservation. You can read about all changes we can make to save water. These include little things we can do everyday like fixing a leaky sprinkler, watering our lawns only two days a week, etc. The water shortage is not going to improve unless Southern Californians collectively change their actions. You can also visit this page to see how much our water reserve levels have dipped steadily since July 2006: http://tr.im/uzKP

By Philip, 7-29-09

The issue is not one of water conservation as much as it is balancing out the loads on the power grid. Demand for electricity spikes on hot summer afternoons. Time of use meters, long in use in California, encourage flexible users like irrigators to run their pumps at off-peak times. Evaporative losses from daytime sprinkling are considerably less than they appear to be.

By Justin Boggs, 7-30-09

The point I don't see addressed here is the huge inrush current when you turn these big pumping motors back on. I always thought that it was kind of hard on the system. Does someone know something about this that I don't?

By Nic, 7-30-09

The way the commands are sent is in a staggering fashion where it turns the pumps back on at the interval the utility company wants to see (IE 60 per minute)

The early days they used to turn them all off at once and create problems on the grid. Yet another advantage over a timer system.

By Justin Boggs, 7-30-09

Yeah, that makes sense because there are enough pumps to do that with. I know you could use a VFD (Variable Frequency Drive) or a digital stepper motor to ramp up slowly, but both of those technologies are kind of pricey for what needs to be accomplished.

You could actually time it so you start a one motor as the inrush slows down on the last and keep a pretty steady, but high, current going down the line.

Thanks for the info Nic.

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