What's the lowest temp into your tank?

Manney

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Penzance
Same, around 5 degrees with Ice builder and bore hole water through the plate cooler. @pellow a little birdie said youight be going back in to milking?
 

pellow

Member
Location
Newquay
Thanks for the replies, just trying to work out what's possible, and calculate energy use for the cooling. I'd like to use solar panels to run the ice builder but Western power say I can only feed 4KW into the grid

Same, around 5 degrees with Ice builder and bore hole water through the plate cooler. @pellow a little birdie said youight be going back in to milking?
My PR department will be releasing a statement in due course
 

frederick

Member
Location
south west
Thanks for the replies, just trying to work out what's possible, and calculate energy use for the cooling. I'd like to use solar panels to run the ice builder but Western power say I can only feed 4KW into the grid


My PR department will be releasing a statement in due course
Do you have 3 phase at the pole.
In. The long term I don't see how a farm will manage without so bite the bullet now. Your export then will probably be 100kw ish
 

Horn&corn

Member
Do you have 3 phase at the pole.
In. The long term I don't see how a farm will manage without so bite the bullet now. Your export then will probably be 100kw ish
We have decent 3 phase and they only allowed us 28kw of solar. Still worth doing. You can put in more panels and limit the amount you export to the 4kw by tech, battery storage or simply not connecting to the grid.
never been convinced that ice building on solar in the heat of the day is the right thing to do
 

Keep On

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
SW
Building ice in the day is effectively your battery
We have decent 3 phase and they only allowed us 28kw of solar. Still worth doing. You can put in more panels and limit the amount you export to the 4kw by tech, battery storage or simply not connecting to the grid.
never been convinced that ice building on solar in the heat of the day is the right thing to
 

frederick

Member
Location
south west
Anyone actually just worked out if cooling the milk in the tank is any cheaper? Surely cooling water to then cool milk must take more energy than just cooling milk?
Because it's heat transfer it's remarkably efficient.
Plus the electricity is economy 7.
Making ice to cool milk at another time would be far more efficient than a conventional battery. It's probably the most efficient battery if cooling is what you need.
 

dinderleat

Member
Location
Wells
Because it's heat transfer it's remarkably efficient.
Plus the electricity is economy 7.
Making ice to cool milk at another time would be far more efficient than a conventional battery. It's probably the most efficient battery if cooling is what you need.
Yes but surely that only matters on the first milking as the next three the milk in the tank will act as an ice builder? so the savings are negligible
 

frederick

Member
Location
south west
Yes but surely that only matters on the first milking as the next three the milk in the tank will act as an ice builder? so the savings are negligible
No you need a refresher course on thermodynamics.
Every milking needs exactly the same energy to cool the milk.

The change from a solid to a liquid actually requires significant energy even when both are at zero degrees.

So even if you could take your milk to 1 degrees you cannot put any where near the energy into the milk because you obviously can't change it into a solid.
3000 litres of milk at 2 degrees combined with 3000 at 15 from a plate cooler will end up at 8.5 degrees but you now have 6000 litres to take 4.5 degrees off.
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Anyone recover the heat pulled from cooling milk? I had a renewables engineer here recently and apparently milk source heat pump is a viable thing. Recover the heat from the milk to produce plenty of hot water for your wash down....
Yep, got heat recovery on the last grant scheme. Got 3 compressors connected. Water is usually about 60 degrees, which we use to fill wash boilers.
So use less leccy to get the water to 85 degrees & the compressors are not working as hard because the gas is returning at a lower temperature

Had done the sums a couple of times in the past but the benifit was marginal. With the grant it became a goer.
Available again in the new grant scheme
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
You can buy something like the "Smartheat" system where the fridge gas goes through a coil in the cylinder. Our fridge man reckons it`s cheaper, & the result is a better system to use a heat exchanger & water pump as the pic..
This set up for each compressor all feeding 1 cylinder
IMG_20200706_162214096.jpg
IMG_20200706_162529224.jpg
 
Last edited:

David1985

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Dorset
At work we have milking going through 2 plate coolers one bore hole and one from ice bank it hits the silo at 1.9-3.5 depending on weather. The silo compressors never kick in. Both compressors for ice bank are doing heat exchange similar to the one above.
 

pellow

Member
Location
Newquay
When is the big announcement? Will it get mentioned it the queen's speech!?
I have not spoken directly to her Majesty regarding my plans

I own a parlour, a tank and all the heifers I want, as long as the 2 lots I have recently bought turn up

all I need is to repair some sheds, fit the 2nd hand cubicles, the parlour and sort some slurry storage

oh, and get a milk contract
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 77 43.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 34.6%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.8%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.2%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,286
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top