Oct. 2005 Vol. 2, Issue 4

Diesel Pump replacement

Almond Growers Find Incentive to Replace Polluting Diesel Pumps

By Marni Katz

Special to California Almonds

Campos Bros. has revamped several facets of its almond growing operation to reduce particulate matter emissions that hamper air quality.

“We have been steadily making efforts in recent years to reduce our overall emissions,” says Todd Ayerza, purchasing manager for Campos Bros.

Two years ago, the Caruthers, Calif.-based almond grower began shredding rather than burning its fall prunings and last year completed the transition to a 100-percent non-burn operation. In addition, Campos Bros. has continuously updated its harvesting and sweep equipment to take advantage of the latest innovations from equipment manufacturers for reducing dust emission from those two critical operations. The grower for years has also controlled dust on its roads and relied on mowing rather than disking to manage orchard middles.

• Click here to download PDF version

“In terms of air quality, the major things you can do in the almond orchard to lower emissions produced on the ranch are shredding prunings, trying to keep harvesting equipment up to date, going to non-till rather than disking middles and converting from diesel to electric power,” Ayerza says.

So when PG&E in August rolled out a new program that provides farmers with incentives to replace the diesel motors that power their irrigation pumps with cleaner burning electric ones, Campos Bros. was first in line.

The new AG-ICE incentive program offered through PG&E and Southern California Edison could help replace some 1,600 irrigation pump diesel engines in PG&E’s service area alone. The program offers growers locked-in reduced electricity rates and funds to run power lines to the new pump's engines. (Photo courtesy of PG&E)

“Right as our doors opened on Aug. 1, the first day of the program, Campos Bros. came through with 82 applications,” says PG&E spokesperson Christy Dennis. “Since that time we have received 580 applications from growers throughout the state and we believe we’ll have enough funding to convert 1,200 to 1,600 diesel engines to electric motors, which is phenomenal.”

Dennis says PG&E last spring held a number of workshops for farmers throughout California looking to take advantage of the AG-ICE incentive program, which promises growers low, locked-in electricity rates until 2015 and also pays the bulk of the cost for extending power lines to new electric pumps. Interest among growers since then has swelled.

The Agricultural-Internal Combustion Engine Conversion Incentive program, called AG-ICE for short, was launched by PG&E and Southern California Edison in conjunction with the California Air Resources Board and San Joaquin Valley Air Quality Control District on Aug. 1. The program provides incentives to the state’s farmers in the PG&E and SCE service area to permanently retire stationary diesel engines that power irrigation pumps with clean burning and efficient electric motors. To qualify for the program, the diesel engines must be at least 50 horsepower and have been used for irrigation pumping prior to Sept. 1, 2004.

According to the Air Resources Board, an estimated 8,000 diesel irrigation pump engines operate on farms in California, contributing some 17 percent of the PM10s produced by all stationary sources in the Central Valley alone. Electric motors reduce emission from those irrigation pumps by about 98 percent.

“Converting diesel irrigation pumps to electricity, a near-zero emissions source, is the best available control method for that equipment and will result in significant short-term improvements to air quality,” says Catherine Witherspoon, executive director of the state Air Resources Board.

The AG-ICE incentive program will be a particular boon to residents in the Central Valley, which suffers some of the worst air quality ratings in the country. But it will also provide the region’s farmers, who are facing tighter regulations on the particulate matter and other emissions coming from the field, significant financial benefits for converting their diesel pumps to electricity.

AG-ICE establishes a rate for agricultural customers enrolled in the program that is 20 percent lower than the standard agricultural rate. That rate of 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour is locked in for 10 years with a guaranteed annual rate increase of only 1.5 percent until the rate schedule expires in 2015.

In addition, the California Public Utilities Commission has funded a $27 million mainline extension fund to pay the cost of running power lines to irrigation pumps where electricity is not already established in the grower’s field.

Dennis says the rate schedule was established with the idea of making the operating cost for electric pump engines equivalent to that of operating diesel engines. However, the rate was approved when diesel prices averaged only $1.15 a gallon. The savings in air emissions could be enormous, but with diesel prices topping $3 a gallon, the cost savings to growers could be tremendous as well.

“Our goal when we established the rate a year ago was to get the rate as close to what growers were paying for diesel as possible,” Dennis says. “But with the current phenomenal diesel and gas prices, it’s an extra incentive for growers to convert.”

Converting from diesel engine powered pumps such as these to cleaner burning electric pumps is the goal of an incentive program being offered through PG&E and Southern California Edison Photo courtesy of PG&E

Ayerza says the almond growing, hulling and processing operation already was considering making a change to cleaner burning electric pump engines when the incentive program was announced.

Campos Bros. more than a decade ago had converted its irrigation pump engines from electricity to diesel when standby charges drove up the price of electricity at a time growers were paying only about 50 cents a gallon for diesel.

“At the time diesel was cheap and so it made more sense to convert to diesel motors so we wouldn’t have to pay standby charges to operate our pumps,” Ayerza says.

But as the price of diesel has steadily increased in recent years, and growers are faced with increased regulations on operating diesel engines, Campos Bros. began exploring the idea of converting back to electricity.

“The price of fuel has risen dramatically to the point where we’re paying more than $3 a gallon for diesel,” Ayerza says. “And after a number of years, maintenance has become an issue with the diesel motors. They tend to work pumps harder than electric motors because the vibrations are rougher on the shafts and the pump assembly.”

 AG-ICE gives Campos Bros. the incentive and long-term price guarantees they needed to make the switch back to electricity.

“The PG&E program is definitely an incentive because they gave us certain guarantees. And there won’t be any standby charges in the winter when we don’t need to pump water and are just paying a charge to be hooked up to the grid,” Ayerza says. “PG&E will waive the standby charges with the new program which makes the conversion very enticing for economic reasons and for ease of operation.”

In late September, Campos Bros. was in the process of converting 100 percent of its diesel engines to electricity. PG&E was installing a low-voltage subpanel and needed power poles in the orchard while a pump supply company was steadily replacing diesel motors in the almond orchard with new electric ones.

“It’s a pretty simple process. The only real labor involved is for you to remove your old diesel motor. We just ordered the electric motor through the pump shop and they set it right in,” Ayerza says.

# # #

LINKS

For more information on AG-ICE or to apply for the program call PG&E’s Business Customer Service Center at (800) 468-4743 or log on to www.pge.com/agice.