Wexus (Water-Energy-Nexus) Blog. Insights for driving impact and efficiency with IoT technology

Customer Case Study: Major Grower Hancock AIG Drives Sustainability Goals with Wexus Software

Written by Wexus | Jan 28, 2019

"Using Wexus, we've been able to compare surface and groundwater costs, and decide whether purchasing or pumping water on specific fields provides more savings for our business. We've also found the data export features hugely helpful for internal and external reporting, and are looking forward to having Wexus on hand to comply with new groundwater reporting regulations."

- Sam Lopes, Risk Analyst

Background

Founded in 1990, Hancock Agricultural Investment Group (HAIG) is one of the world’s largest managers of farmland investments for institutional investors. HAIG manages over $3 billion worth of high-quality farmland assets of permanent and row crops totaling over 336,000 acres in major ag regions including California, the Midwest, the Mississippi Delta, the Pacific Northwest, the Southern Plains, and Southeast United States; Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales, Australia; and Quebec and Alberta, Canada.

Project

Hancock Farmland’s Triangle T Ranch in California’s Central Valley encompasses +90 irrigation pumps and four 1 MW solar arrays across 12,000 acres of pistachio and almond trees. Tracking energy and water costs and usage at this ranch required hours of data entry, deciphering solar bills was nearly impossible. Better tools were needed for real-time decision making.

By using Wexus’ IoT software platform and by working with their dedicated Wexus Energy Engineer, Hancock is now able to easily report energy costs, usage and water consumption - saving 240 labor hours per year. Wexus also helped verify the amount of energy generated and costs offset by Hancock’s solar arrays, which was found to be over $650,000 per year.

By utilizing Wexus’ cost calculator and cost intensity tools, Hancock is also able to evaluate how energy efficiency impacts their real cost of pumping on-site groundwater versus the costs of delivering irrigation water, leading to better business decisions around equipment maintenance, cost efficiency, and sustainability reporting.

Interested in hearing more about how Wexus software can drive reporting and efficiency gains for your farming operation? Contact our Energy Engineers at ops@wexusapp.com or click here to get a free software demo