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Our farm was started by a guy by the name of David Waite, and that was roughly seven
generations ago. He started with two cows. Now we're milking close to 1600 cows, so
it's obviously changed a lot since he started. There is a number of things that we use hot
water for on the farm. One would be cleaning all of our system, that's probably our biggest
use. Then there's general domestic use, like laundry. The other big demand we have is warming
up milk and milk replacer to feed our calves.
We have consistent hot water demand every day of the year, regardless of whether it's
warm out or not. And because of that, particularly the summer, there's just a huge amount of
energy that we can pick up and use, and use every day, and that story made sense to me.
And certainly with NYSERDA's help, it made even more sense to us. NYSERDA's involvement
in our solar hot water project -- they helped provide an incentive that made the project
that much more appealing to us.
I think in another year, we'll have very significant payback. And on top of that, we'll have more
consistent hot water quality, which is almost as important from a quality standpoint as
the actual expense of it.
The other farmers that I've had conversations with, I've told them they should do it. They're
farms, regardless of whether they have 100 cows or 1600 cows, they still need to clean
their system and they still need to feed their calves.
So any day that you have a sunny day, your collectors are collecting energy from the
sun, they're making hot water, and that's a day that you don't need to provide heat
from a nonrenewable energy source. And I think that's a win for farms. And it's certainly
a win for us. So I think NYSERDA's involvement has certainly helped us and I think it can
help a lot of other farms.