Scotland’s experts on farmer co-ops and food industry collaboration, we work with food and farming businesses to make them more profitable, competitive, and sustainable - #workingtogether to shape the future, today.
All our work helps facilitate farmers and food and drink businesses to work together effectively. Over the years we've expanded and developed subsidiary businesses - getting the right people together and making innovative advancements - to help benefit food, farming and rural Scotland.
Developing staff capability is one of the most effective ways to improve a co-op’s performance. Check out our events and training programme - most of which are open to non co-op members too.
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04 February 2025
David Michie shares latest blog on the possibilities for greener energy.Diesel is essential for farming businesses and, despite the tax breaks received through lower fuel duty, a major cost to them. As a greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuel, and with the Government open to changing how agriculture is taxed, within SAOS’s C2Network (C2N) we are keen to keep an eye on how possible alternatives are progressing. Electrifying high HP farm machinery will be very difficult, but hydrogen fuel is not as far away as you may think.
Some innovative farm businesses have significantly reduced their CO2 emissions by fitting small devices to diesel-powered machinery that effectively create hydrogen fuel. These are HydroGen devices. They produce a hydrogen and oxygen gas mixture that the device injects into the engine through air intake. The device works together with diesel, so it doesn’t eliminate the use of fossil fuels, rather it is ‘blue’ rather than ‘green’ hydrogen.
It is considerably cleaner and greener than red diesel on its own, however. Studies have shown that it reduces fuel consumption by 11-29%, and exhaust emissions by about 80%. It provides a cleaner burn for fuel and, with it installed, machines require fewer filter replacements. A retrofit, to any engine size, can be done in less than a day, with no additional engine adjustments, no hydrogen storage and no special generator capacity required.
C2N has been collaborating with farmers to investigate the feasibility of installing these devices on their farm machinery, working together with a University of Edinburgh Masters student, and a group of farmers, to calculate financial feasibility. He did this by creating a model farm business, calculating what the yearly diesel consumption data for this business would be, then investigating efficiency parameters, operational costs, and pricing.
He found that, at current fuel and energy prices, the investment break-even point is at year 4, in a system duration of 6 years (while the manufacturer estimates the systems last for 9 years). It provided an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 13.55%.
This sounds pretty feasible to us, so why isn’t everyone using it? Perhaps due to lack of awareness, or because of uncertainty about a very new technology. Maybe because of concerns about engine warranties for newer machinery.
We believe that Government could help with these concerns, supporting adoption and promoting mainstream use through grant-based programmes. Funding a proportion of capital expenditure for this bit of agri-tech could kick-start adoption by farm businesses and help them to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
SAOS’s C2N is all about driving positive change in agriculture through collaboration. We hope that by bringing farmers and academics together, and sharing the evidence found, we can help move Scottish agriculture further along the hard path of emissions reductions.