"Canadian growers suffer from lack of knowledge on Energy"

Many Canadian greenhouse operations are making unnecessary losses as a result of the substantial lack of knowledge about their energy management.

According to David Arkell of 360 Energy, comprehensive energy management is still not a priority among most growers. "Many growers in North America are not fully conversant on regulated and deregulated market issues and what opportunities are available for them to implement in order to reduce energy costs throughout the year. Most of our customers, including growers, tend to rely on the government to fix the problem of increasing energy costs."

David Arkell's company 360 Energy helps industrial operations and producers to solve their energy issues. Over the last couple of years they have been increasingly active for year round greenhouse growers that have issues with their electricity resources for supplemental lighting. "We have customers whose prices of power have skyrocketed to a point that they negated their profits. We design programs for them to start saving energy and obtain better electricity pricing. We even educate them and show them that they can earn money with buying electricity instead of losing money."

According to Arkell, the strategies that 360 Energy designs are not completely new, but for some reason they are not used by greenhouse growers in North America. This is weird if you think about the fact that Canadian growers are always looking to how Dutch growers are running their businesses.

Arkell: "It is often forgotten that Dutch growers often spent the same amount of time on their energy management, as they spent on their cropping strategy. They experienced very bad pricing in a saturated market and due to the reason that the energy price covers a significant part of their cost price; they are forced to take a closer look at their energy strategy over the last 10 years. Since then, they have become champions in energy saving strategies; it is not an exception that they have multiple energy consultants that analyse their strategies every week!”

Arkell said, the strategies of 360 Energy have nothing to do with a new contract for electricity or natural gas supply. "We are not buyers or brokers; we are just a group of people with full knowledge and understanding on how a grower uses energy. At the same time we have the know-how about the grid, pipeline and energy (electricity and natural gas) market place fundamentals. A combination of this knowledge, plus advanced forecast software, results in unique strategies and rate structures that eventually will give the grower the optimal price, or even let him make money, without affecting the production in the greenhouse."

As 360 Energy started to work with more and more greenhouse growers in Canada over the last couple of years they have created several successful strategies and realized some good results. Arkell mentioned that savings up to 400,000 $ are not an exception, but that it takes a lot commitment from both parties to realize them. "When we enter a multiple year program, it requires the attention from the grower as well, even with the steep learning curve that we offer."

While Arkell does not want to give away too much of the magic, he did explain that it all has to do with supply and demand. "We advise growers on how to use their energy. For example, we can sometimes advise them to shut of the lights on a specific part of the day. We know that this will affect their crops, but we also know that this will have a very positive effect on their energy costs. This might scare growers initially, but when they see what kind of savings they make they will understand it. At the same time, we sometimes advise them to turn on the lights, even when they may not need them, simply to make money."

If you would like to learn more about 360 Energy, please contact:

360Energy
David Arkell
david.arkell@360energy.net
www.360energy.net