Agricultural EE Methodology

The general methodology for all energy efficiency measures can be found here. The sections below provide an overview specific to the agricultural sector.

Overview of Methods for Agricultural Sector

Where applicable, measure cost and savings assumptions are consistent with RTF analysis. Otherwise, these are based on engineering analysis, or technical reference manuals or workpapers from jurisdictions around the country. For measure applicability, these are primarily based on the 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture Census of Agriculture and the 2018 Irrigation and Water Management Survey as there is no region-specific stock assessment available. Where gaps exist, the analysis relies on expert judgment.

Physical Units for Agricultural

The conservation supply curves are developed primarily by identifying savings and cost per unit and estimating the number of applicable and achievable units that the measure can be deployed on. In the irrigation sector analysis, the applicable unit estimates for irrigated acreage, system types, and annual water application were drawn from the 2018 USDA Irrigation and Water Management Survey. The estimate of current diary production in the region primarily comes from the 2017 USDA Census of Agriculture. Staff developed a forecast of future milk production growth in the region based on historical relationship between milk production and the load by state.

Agricultural Baseline Characteristics

Baseline conditions for irrigation hardware system efficiency improvements were estimated from the USDA Irrigation and Water Management Survey and discussions with Bonneville and utility staff with in-depth experience working with farmers on these systems. Dairy efficiency in the region were based on expert judgment, and against other regions, such as in New York (based on work by NYSERDA) and California.

Agricultural Measure Applicability and Achievability

No quantitative study has been conducted in the region at the time of the 2021 Plan supply curve development to determine the current saturation and remaining opportunities for improvement in either irrigation system hardware or on diaries. Therefore, judgment, based on discussions with Bonneville and utility program staff served as the basis for estimating the remaining number of systems and diaries in the region that could carry out cost-effective energy efficiency improvements. Where quantitative data was available (e.g. the acreage irrigated with high pressure systems), these data were used to size the remaining opportunities for savings.

Guide to Agricultural Workbooks

The eight workbooks containing the Agriculture Sector conservation resource assessment are downloadable. The list of files is provided in the tables below along with a short description of scope.

Agricultural Sector Supply Curve Workbooks

All the individual measure files are linked to the “Ag_Master - 2021P.xls” file. This file contains the complete measure list, baseline data, applicability factors, maximum achievable, and ramp rates (achievability rates). The reference data in AgMaster are primarily in matrices by measure bundle and building type. The primary reference data in the AgMaster file are listed and described in the table below.

Reference Data in AgMaster Workbook