– Everything is fine. At 8 o’clock the electricity was already turned on, now at 11:39 it is on – and we know that it will be turned off at 12 and turned on again at 4:25 p.m., – says Ukrainian mushroom grower Iryna Lubar, “Navika” farm. – When there was no schedule there was a chaos. And now everything is on schedule, we are working normally.In Ukraine, planned power outages as the reason of damaged electricity connections and necessarily to save electricity continue to make growers` life harder. Many hours a day Ukrainians live without electricity. But mushroom growers are learning to work effectively under such circumstances. UMDIS found out how.
Iryna Lubar developed the “Farm Energy Use Scheme” for her farm. Like many Ukrainian farms, during power outages, the farm switches to a generator.
-The first week of switching off electricity we had a problem that everyone was running, calling me. And I’m not an electrician yet, – recalls Iryna. – Because they didn’t know what to connect first and what to do.
Therefore, the owners of the farm “Navika” made a table with all the equipment and power they require. Made a column with information what is critical for work. When the light is turned off, the workers connect the equipment in the sequence that is optimal. In 5 minutes, according to this scheme, the grower points on the scheme which cameras need to be connected immediately. You can instantly see what the total power will be, whether you can afford to turn on additional equipment without overloading the generator. According to this scheme, it is very easy to divide the power of the generator.
– If you have the opportunity, it is better to involve an electrician in creating such a scheme. Because it may happen that the device requires 2 kV, but to connect 3 kV – he should tell you about it, then you can take everything into account and not overload the generator. From our experience, it is better to leave 3-5 kV of power unused – just in case and just so that the generator does not wear out, because it is an expensive thing, – advises Iryna Lubar.
Iryna developed not only a scheme for using electricity, but also an algorithm how to act in critical situations when turning off the lights. To do this, she looked at situations which cause the most chaos. She prescribed for each employee what he should do. For example, how a responsible person should lead pickers out of growing rooms without light. This greatly optimized the reaction in moments of crisis.
For information: roughly speaking a 35-40 kW generator for a mushroom farm will cost 13500 USD. According to our data, if you rent it, the monthly cost will be up to 540 USD.
In case you would like to sponsor any Ukrainian farm to buy or rent the generator – text us (+380935690941 WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram) and we will help you to connect to the farm to do this.
