With the global population projected to grow from the current 8-billion people to 10-billion by 2050, the agriculture industry faces some significant questions:

• How will the planet feed an additional two billion people? Where will this extra food come from?
• With water scarcity becoming a reality, how will we find water to irrigate crops?  
• Where will we find electricity to power the pumps that drive our irrigation systems? 
• How much CO2 will be released into the atmosphere to generate this electricity? What impact will this incremental CO2 have on our climate and the environment on which we are dependent to successfully produce extra food?

Most of South Africa’s electricity generation is carbon-based, so reducing our consumption is crucial. We also face extreme shortages of electricity and water, coupled with uncertain supply. 

Agricultural Internet of Things (IoT) product designer and manufacturer Shock Wave Engineering’s quest is to reduce carbon emissions and save water. A field-testing programme in 2012 identified that irrigation pumps were wasting vast quantities of energy, highlighting the scope to save energy in this sector. Many systems were underperforming and there was scope to improve yields by resolving the underlying issues.

To achieve savings, real world data is required from remote sites to analyse consumption and identify energy saving opportunities. A control system must be deployed to operate pumps efficiently. To deliver this, Shock Wave Engineering has developed a range of IoT monitoring and control systems specifically for farms.

Its cloud-based IoT technology and systems enable it to gather and analyse energy consumption data, implement solutions and track savings and system performance remotely. 

For farmers, this means managing pumps, centre pivots, reservoirs, dairies, feed silos and permaset irrigation systems via an app: monitoring and controlling parameters, automating the remote stopping and starting of equipment, setting alerts to safeguard equipment and ensuring equipment does not fail.

The outcome is that processes function correctly; energy and water consumption are reduced; farmers save time; and equipment is protected from failure.

Shock Wave Engineering is a small company, but it is making an outsized impact on energy consumption. Have you started your energy saving journey? Will you simply tick the boxes and hope it works? Or will you embark on an energy saving project with measurable results?