Volume 58

Development and Validation of the Beef Farm Electricity Model Prabhashi A. Andrahennadi, Darren J. Murphy, N.W.A. Lidula, Michael D. Murphy

Abstract

The objective of this paper was to define and demonstrate a model that simulates electricity consumption on pasture-based beef farms. The Beef Farm Electricity Model (BFEM) was designed to simulate electricity consumption across beef farm operations, including water pumping, electric fencing, lighting, and other electrically powered infrastructure. BFEM employed grey box modelling techniques that utilised empirical data for tuning model parameters and was trained using empirical data from 12 pasture-based Irish beef farms. The results showed strong agreement between simulated and actual electricity use, with moderate predictive accuracy for water pumps (RMSE = 12.79 kWh, MAPE = 8.13%) and lighting systems (RMSE = 9.53 kWh, MAPE = 11.00%). Prediction accuracy for electric fence electricity use was lower (RMSE = 9.85 kWh, MAPE = 58.46%). These findings demonstrated BFEM’s potential as a decision-support resource for energy auditing, infrastructure planning, and facilitating the integration of renewable energy systems on beef farms.

Keywords Beef farm electricity, electricity demand modelling, grey box modelling, farm energy use