Thread: Is Solar really worth it?

Originally Posted by mcrover

Im assuming you are meaning grass greens or scrapes?

Actually, I meant Deere or Toro. Have done consulting for the latter. They are very keen to improve their environmental footprint, so may be willing to assist.

Wind isnt really the go, we do get our fair share but I wouldnt say it was regular like on the coast.

Might still be worth getting someone to crunch some numbers and give you a quote. Offender90 on here should have some contacts in that area.

i am sure i am missing something here,those vehicles you mentioned to be charged will be in use in daytime hours and be charged at night when there is no sun,does the system store the power through the day and discharge at night

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Actually, I meant Deere or Toro. Have done consulting for the latter. They are very keen to improve their environmental footprint, so may be willing to assist.

We dont have any John Deere Equipment, they have a lot of good equipment but it doesnt nessesarilly suit our course and budget.

We do have some Toro stuff, our new Spray rig is on a Toro 3300 workman primemover, We have 5 GR1000 walkbehind pedestrian mowers, 2 Toro Sandpro Bunker rakes and a GM6500 Fairway mower.

The rest of our stuff is mainly Jacobsen (Orange).

Might still be worth getting someone to crunch some numbers and give you a quote. Offender90 on here should have some contacts in that area.

Originally Posted by lewy

i am sure i am missing something here,those vehicles you mentioned to be charged will be in use in daytime hours and be charged at night when there is no sun,does the system store the power through the day and discharge at night

Yes your right but most are only used 1 or 2 days a week so there is plenty of time to charge up (another 5 or 6 days to charge up) but there is the opertunity to feed back to the grid during the day and draw off in the off peak times.

The later is the least economical for the user but is probably the most enviromentally freindly due to the power created will deffinatly be used.

Originally Posted by mcrover

The later is the least economical for the user but is probably the most enviromentally freindly due to the power created will deffinatly be used.

When we have the carbon trading scheme forced upon us could you not use the solar panels to reduce your carbon footprint and pay less tax. Being a golf course I imagine it should be pretty low anyway (all that grass ). If your really keen on the solar or other renewable sources perhaps you could use the new tax as a driver/excuse to get a renewable system installed.

Originally Posted by stuee

When we have the carbon trading scheme forced upon us could you not use the solar panels to reduce your carbon footprint and pay less tax. Being a golf course I imagine it should be pretty low anyway (all that grass ). If your really keen on the solar or other renewable sources perhaps you could use the new tax as a driver/excuse to get a renewable system installed.

Yeah well this is a bit of a shakey subject when it comes down to sporting fields and Golfcourses.

The thing is that even though All types of grass convert carbon it wont count in the carbon trading sceme as it stands at the moment.

This is a bit of a sore point more on sporting fields as there is not many ways a sporting field can grow tree's to off set their carbon usage as small as it is (Diesel for mowers, petrol for rollers and other small equiment e.g. line markers etc and electricity for lighting and running or the clubrooms etc).

We have on average 1000 more tree's per acre than what we should have as far as a golf course land usage goes but only about 1/3 of those trees will count with the carbon credits sceme as they have to be within a certain age (3yo to 30yo depending on type of tree as well).

We have spent a massive amount of money so far on doing a tree audit as a start to a complete enviromental audit which will be my best chance at getting some alternative technology into the place but as it stands, the government wont subsidise alternative energy for us so there is no economical advantage.

I was helping out a mate on another course today who is preparing to run some of his fleet on Bio Diesel.

At the moment all off road vehicals get a 19c per ltr off on normal dino diesel but comertial Bio is only about 10c cheaper than the normal bulk price but the gov wont give the same rebate on Bio as they will Dino plus because the comertial bio suppliers are relatively small they have to charge a fairly hefty delivery charge which pretty much eats away the 10c discount so subsequently you using a bit more, paying 19c more for it and you have to pay money to convert your machinery to use it.

Bloody hard to see the value in that as well.

The Gov isnt making it easy for us to clean up our act.

So much for going green, all businesses are in business to make money.....at least enough to keep running but how are we meant to move forward in a responsible way if it just keeps becoming more and more expensive to do.

The other thing a found out today is that we will soon be charged a premium to dispose of lead acid batteries.

They are blaming enviromental presures for that as well but that means that this will work against me and others like me who wish to use electric machines in the future.

The more I get into it, the more disappointed and angry it is making me.

I think im going to give up with it all soon and worry about it when we absolutly have to.

....the low Aussie dollar isn't going to help either...

Originally Posted by stuee

Being a golf course I imagine it should be pretty low anyway (all that grass ).

Actually, you might be surprised... Most golf courses use a lot of water and a lot of fertiliser. Fertiliser use releases greenhouse gases (N2O, CO2 etc...), and producing/pumping water requires energy, which also equates to GHGs.

Solar panels have indeed probably gone up recently... Whereas the cost of buying green power has probably stayed the same...

McRover - how about looking into Natural Gas vehicles? Then you can compost your waste and capture the CH4 to use as biogas

Originally Posted by mcrover

We have on average 1000 more tree's per acre than what we should have as far as a golf course land usage goes but only about 1/3 of those trees will count with the carbon credits sceme as they have to be within a certain age (3yo to 30yo depending on type of tree as well).

You sure about that??? Sure, most CO2 sequestration occurs over the first 30 years, however this continues until 80+ years. No reason you can't plan commercially valuable trees and harvest them at 30yo???

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Actually, you might be surprised... Most golf courses use a lot of water and a lot of fertiliser. Fertiliser use releases greenhouse gases (N2O, CO2 etc...), and producing/pumping water requires energy, which also equates to GHGs.

Solar panels have indeed probably gone up recently... Whereas the cost of buying green power has probably stayed the same...

McRover - how about looking into Natural Gas vehicles? Then you can compost your waste and capture the CH4 to use as biogas


You sure about that??? Sure, most CO2 sequestration occurs over the first 30 years, however this continues until 80+ years. No reason you can't plan commercially valuable trees and harvest them at 30yo???

As far as Bio gas goes, I havnt looked into it but thats a possability.

As far as the tree's go, thats what we have been told is going to happen so we are looking at ways to make it work for us but establishing trees in new areas takes time which Golfers dont like so that is a major reason why we are not looking at commertial type crops of trees.

Your right about the energy usage and the fertaliser etc which is why we want to be able to offset the carbon emissions.

The turf does convert carbon the same as any other plant though, some species better than others in specific areas but the gov wont allow us at this stage to include turfed areas in our enviromental audit.