Goodchilds Meats
100KW Parkfield, WA
Ground Mount, Grid Connected, Remotely Monitored
Fred Goodchild established a meat company in 1948, with a partner Bob Williams, trading as Goodwill Butchers. Initially selling carcass Beef and Lamb from Robbs Jetty Abattoirs in North Coogee. In 1978 they built a meat processing facility, which is located in Hamilton Hill mainly to bone surplus forequarters of beef. Their boning room now specialises in delivering carcass beef and vacuum sealed products to butcher shops and various other meat outlets. Their facility has the capacity to bone and vacuum pack 100 cattle per 8 hour shift each day. Goodchild Meats also purchased their own Abattoirs located at Australind in 1978, owned by Les Pike and Family.
Project Details
Goodchild Meats engaged Simon Barclay from West Australian Alternative Energy (WAAE) to perform a detailed Energy Assessment and Viability Report to outline how they could reduce the energy consumption costs for their abattoir facility in Parkfield. Goodchild Meats also wished to reduce ongoing increasing costs from their electricity retailer as well as reduce the abattoir’s substantial electricity bills with its current consumption averaging 40,000 units of peak power per month. The design brief was to design a PV system that matched the load profile of the client whilst minimising the amount of export power as Western Power (WP) have a zero export requirement for PV systems between 30 kVA and 150 kVA. It was determined that a 100 kW solar energy system was the best fit for the site. Due to the nature of the site a ground mount system was deemed the most suitable design option.
Solution
The 100kW solar energy system was built in an existing paddock. The system will reduce the electricity consumption from the grid by 15% and reduce their electricity costs by 22%. Because this system is over 30kVa we needed to conform with a more stringent set of connection rules enforced by the Distribution Network Service Provider, Western Power. This protection system monitors the grid and provides zero export control via wireless communications as the point of attachment was over 400m from the PV plant, eliminating any need for trenching of multiple primary roads. The PV is ramped to match the load in 16 steps. It is projected that the Goodchild Meats 100kW system will reduce the company’s direct carbon emissions by around 150 tonnes per year and in so doing will represent a notable contribution to carbon reduction efforts as a whole.