Many farmers have begun installing new milk cooling systems and have found the change has improved their operations on-farm. Take John Gregan, for example, he farms at the foot of the Hunter Hills, near Waimate in South Canterbury. He has 650 cows on 260ha. A year ago, his old system was leaking gas and not doing the job. It was becoming a bit of a nightmare, he says.
"The HFC gas was leaking through an old weld pipe joint. This is a very bad gas regarding global emissions, so I was doing no one any favours."
The HFC class of gas systems have very high global warming impact and they are being phased out. Costs for them are expected to rise over the next five years, and this is one of the key drivers for change.
John has now installed a new system, Varivat, using a Coolsense vendor and with support from Farm Source when it came to organising finance. He says the new distributed cooling system has made a big difference. "The milk is much cooler and the worry of whether the system would work or need more repair is gone as it is remotely monitored. My old system had a pre-chiller 30,000L water tank, as well as the refrigerator unit, so it took a bit of sorting. The new unit is much smaller and tidier."
John would highly recommend the change to other farmers, although it's a capital outlay, the value from the change is certainly worth it. As always, Farm Source advises farmers to focus on the full lifetime cost of the system, not just the initial capital cost. "Over time it will certainly pay for itself and my old system," John says. "The energy savings and the hot water by-product help with the value and the removal of the old global warming gases is a real bonus too."
Jason Ham also changed his system a couple of weeks ago. He now uses a DTS 8hp self-contained unit, which replaces an older, smaller unit and means he can cool his milk down more efficiently in summer.
