At Twisted Gum wines we have been transitioning much of our energy needs to solar and batteries since we purchased this property in 2007.
In 2008 we installed our first system of solar panels (2kw) and a solar hot water heater for our house.
Since that time we have been regularly increasing the size of our solar systems. A few years later we expanded this 2kw system to 5kw and then adding a second 5kw system.
Then a few years later again we expanded one of these 5kw systems to 34kw and added another 32kw system.
At present in 2024 we have a total of 71kws of solar panels across our 3 solar systems. We also have 44kws of battery storage to allow us to use excess solar power overnight to power the cooling systems in our micro winery and also provide for the electric needs of our house and our 3 bedroom tourist cottage.
We have also installed 22kw EV chargers at our cellar door building and also at our tourist cottage.
Cellar door visitors and cottage guests are provided with complementary EV charging.
We are transitioning to battery electric powered vehicles and tools to make use of this solar power. This includes:
- Electric SUV for deliveries (a Tesla Model Y)
- Electric off-road cart/ute
- Electric zero turn mower
- Electric walk behind forklift
- Electric block splitter
- Electric chainsaw
- Electric brush cutter
- Plus many more small battery electric tools
We are now waiting for electric tractors to also become available in Australia. In the meantime our petrol and diesel usage and costs have plummeted, using less than 50 litres in most quarters in recent years.
