How is solar power helping to decrease the costs of irrigation for a coffee farm in Mareeba?

Water is essential to a coffee plantation, especially in Mareeba, where there are 300 sunny days and a long dry season. Without it, the coffee trees will die, but we also need that dry period to stress the trees and create flowers. To control water, power is needed to pump water out of the creek over the coffee trees. However, a traditional setup can cost about $40,000 - $50,000 per year for 85,000 coffee trees.

One solution is solar power. In 2011, the plantation installed 85 kilowatts of solar power, and it paid for itself quickly. Now, they are doubling that capacity to 160 kilowatts. This upgrade will help the plantation save money and be more environmentally friendly.

So water is a primary concern on a coffee plantation. In Mareeba we have 300 sunny days, so it's a long dry season that we have up here. So without water, the coffee trees will obviously die, but we also need that dry period so we can stress the trees and create flowers. So that's why Mareeba is the ideal climate for the actual coffee trees itself. So we get to control it with the water, and with the water obviously you have water consumption. Now that isn't very expensive for the water itself, the main consideration is the power, pumping the water out of the creek over the coffee trees. In a traditional setup, so if you can imagine a pump running at 45 kilowatts for 12 hours a day, you're talking in the $40,000 - $50,000 a year plus, just for 85,000 coffee trees. So you can imagine that's a huge impact on a small business.

If we're talking about 300 sunny days a year, we're also talking, okay, let's look at solar power. So that's back in 2011 we first got into it, so we put in 85 kilowatts of solar power in 2011, and it paid for itself in no time at all. So with that consideration, we decided that we wanted a bit of an upgrade. So we're doubling that capacity to about 160 kilowatts of solar power.