Clear answer
Clear answer, explained.
A typical Ontario farm has high baseline ventilation and lighting year-round, an irrigation peak in summer (which aligns well with solar generation), and a grain drying spike in autumn (which does not). The solar system is sized to the annual consumption profile. Where the autumn drying peak creates significant demand-charge exposure, battery storage can address that without needing to fully offset the energy volume.
Key points
What this means in practice.
- Solar economics on a farm are built on annual offset — not month-by-month or load-by-load matching
- Baseline ventilation and lighting run year-round — providing a stable annual consumption foundation for solar sizing
- Irrigation peaks in summer align well with solar generation — a natural overlap that improves summer offset
- Grain drying spikes in autumn do not align with solar generation — they occur when solar output is declining seasonally
- The solar system is sized to the annual consumption profile — autumn misalignment is accounted for, not ignored
- Battery storage addresses grain drying demand-charge exposure without needing to offset the full energy volume
When this applies
Best-fit environments.
- You operate a grain farm with significant autumn drying loads and want to understand how solar economics account for that
- You have been told solar is not viable for farms with seasonal loads and want to understand whether that is accurate
- You want to understand the role of battery storage in addressing grain drying demand charges alongside solar
- You are building a financial model for a farm solar project and need to understand how seasonal load variation is treated
Q·01
