Can solar power be used to help decrease the cost of food waste for businesses?

We have approached the government for rebates for our decomposting system. Our unique selling point is the availability of solar power which enhances the benefits of the system. We use an app to track excess power usage and start the machine when there is power in excess. This gives us the most input into the system and allows it to heat up and start decomposing the material.

Our food scraps go through a process where shops donate leftover cakes and pies to charity groups. The remaining waste is put through our dehydrator and turned into composting fertiliser. We use the system twice a day, with an average of 50 kilograms of waste going in, and achieving 100 kilograms of compost per day. We get a 50% reduction in the system, with one tonne of material producing 500 kilograms of compost.

We approached the government for rebates for the decomposter. One of our attributes, why we wanted to use it on this site and not use it on another site, was the availability of solar on this site. So we could enhance the benefit and not have it as a pure power usage out on another site. The excess power that we're using, we're trying to, we've mimicked with our web-based app to find what time slot we were actually not using power, and there was power in excess, and that's when we would start the machine up. So in that sense, it gives us the most input into the system that allows it to heat up and start generating enough heat for it to start decomposing the material.

Our food scraps that are wastage, we go through a process that our shops actually donate those cakes and pies that are left over at the end of the day to our charity groups. And then we move on to what isn't used at the end of the day, we put through our dehydrator, compost and we turn into a composting fertiliser. We basically use the system twice a day, with an average of about 50 kilograms a day going into the system. And by doing this we're achieving a hundred kilograms per day. We're getting a reduction, a lot of our product is already semi-dry if you like, in dry pastries and things like that. And we're getting about a 50% reduction in that system. So, one tonne of material going into the system over a period of time would achieve 500 kilograms of compost material out the other end.