At merchant power rates of 0.04 $/kWh plus the monthly savings of $4,000/month for sawdust bedding, I calculate a simple payback of less than 10 years (ignoring cost of capital and ignoring O&M costs). Add in those, and payback is probably less than 20 years.
If the farm were required to install odor control, the payback would be a lot less.
This actually sounds like it might be a decent investment.
It might well be but the article doesn’t have enough details to allow for much more than calculated guesses.
I was using 6.8 cents for my calc and came up with payback on power sales alone ($99,280.00 / year) in 10 years , the $4k in savings on bedding a month is another $48K per year bonus ... payback in under 7 years ..
wholesale electricity prices in PA .. http://www.econstats.com/fut/xeiae_em2.htm