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Egg-celerate your savings by investing in energy efficiency upgrades with QRIDA

2 April 2026

By QRIDA Regional Area Manager for Wide Bay and Fraser Coast, Mark Barrett

Energy efficiency is crucial to the long-term productivity and profitability of egg farms, with on-farm upgrades widely shown to significantly reduce power, energy bills, and emissions.

For example, an energy efficiency audit carried out by the Queensland Farmers’ Federation (QFF) found an egg farm located in the Wide Bay Burnett area could save $11,400 and 44,000 kWh per year by investing in a 30 kW Solar PV system. 

When setting out to improve your farm’s energy efficiency, it’s important to first understand your energy usage and costs, which you can do through an energy audit, and ensure you’ve got the best tariff. Then you can identify on-farm energy efficient improvements. 

Here’s five on-farm energy efficient upgrades egg producers could consider:

1. Ventilation: Replace ventilation fans with more efficient units and use five-minute timers to control minimum ventilation fan(s).
2. Heating and cooling: Explore the use of zone heating where each heater is controlled by a nearby sensor and radiant tube heaters to improve floor heating and reduce energy usage. Check that the circulation fan system is capable of moving at least 20% of a house’s volume each minute.
3. Lights: Consider replacing incandescent bulbs with LED lights for lower energy consumption and a longer lifespan, also use timers and dimmers to optimise light usage based on bird needs.
4. Combine solar with batteries: Implement battery storage with solar to ensure you have a reliable energy source and avoid your dependency on the grid. 
5. Measure energy usage: Consider installing power data monitoring in each house. Connecting to the poultry houses’ controller and/or internet enables power usage to be monitored on a continuous basis (15-minute intervals).

A concessional QRIDA Sustainability Loan of up to $1.3 million can help eligible egg producers fund on-farm energy efficient upgrades.

Visit QRIDA's Sustainability Loan webpage or QRIDA on 1800 623 946 to find out more about how you can power more and spend less with QRIDA. 

Visit Queensland Ag Energy Hub's website to find out more about energy information for farmers. 

Note: The case study referred to in this article is a Queensland Ag Energy Hub case study. The Queensland Ag Energy Hub is managed by the Queensland Farmers’ Federation (QFF) and was funded by the Queensland Government.