Primary production

Winemakers Pernod Ricard are set to cut their natural gas bill by $21,000 a year thanks to a new hot-water boiler at the company's Auckland wine-bottling plant.

The $55,000 Northvale boiler is used to heat water for cleaning the equipment at the plant. It is almost 12% more efficient than the steam boiler it replaced, and it is expected to reduce the amount of natural gas the company uses by 479,000 kWh a year.

Soil moisture metering is a good investment for farmers who want to stop over-irrigating and cut their energy costs, according to Lincoln University Dairy Farm manager Peter Hancox.

Installing a soil moisture metering system helped him avoid unnecessarily irrigating an 80-hectare block on at least 32 days during the 2008/2009 growing season-and cut his power bill by more than $2000.

Dairy farmers and technical experts share their experiences across four demonstration projects using a variety of solar water heating and waste heat recovery systems to reduce energy costs in the dairy shed.

Fishing goes back to the future

Switching from trawling to anchor seining has cut Motueka skipper Ken Franks' fuel bill by more than half.

Since converting his 15m boat the FV Vanguard from a trawler to an anchor seiner in 2008 his catches sizes have increased too, and the quality of the fish is better. That means higher profit margins for Mr Franks at a time when rising fuel prices are forcing others in the industry to think about tying their boats up.

Mr Franks is now encouraging other trawler skippers to do the same.