The Improving energy efficiency on irrigated Australian cotton farms project has developed resources for cotton growers to reduce their energy consumption, updated the cotton industry's myBMP energy module, delivered training, workshops and two energy events, the Big Day Outs. It has also coordinate industry-wide energy use benchmarking and compiled these results and recommendations into a benchmarking report. The Improving energy efficiency on irrigated Australian cotton farms project hhad several objectives and the resulting outcomes have had a significant impact on energy efficiency knowledge, skills, awareness and attitude in the Australian cotton industry. Over 1000 irrigated cotton farms (SMEs) have directly participated in energy efficiency capacity building and awareness raising events held via this project: close to every Australian irrigated cotton SME. This project has developed nearly thirty written information resources and has delivered these directly to 850 irrigated cotton SMEs via thirteen field days, workshops and training sessions, including two large scale events, the Big Day Outs.

This project has captured 213 energy assessments of Australian irrigated cotton businesses and compiled these into an important legacy document: Improving Energy Efficiency in Australian Irrigated Cotton Production Benchmarking Report. This report provides the cotton industry a comprehensive analysis of energy consumption, efficiency and future focus areas to continue to improve energy efficiency on irrigated cotton farms across Australia. This data highlights the significance of diesel as the dominant energy source in the Australian cotton industry - clearly clearly identifying this industry as being significantly different to other broadacre industries in Australia where electricity dominates as the energy supply.

The Level 2 and 3 energy assessments have highlighted irrigation efficiency as an area of particular focus to implement energy efficiency activities on irrigated cotton farms. It is recommended three groups should receive special attention in relation to their energy consumption and pumping costs due to their relatively high consumption of energy – groundwater irrigators; irrigators that use large mixed flow pumps; and irrigators that use heavy tillage. The tractor and heavy tillage trials confirm that up to 20 per cent fuel saving is possible with the correct and appropriate ballasting, tyre pressures, and implement depth control.

The assessments have also highlighted that potential water savings in surface irrigated cotton fields can be 10 to 20 per cent, and 20 to 40 per cent in on-farm storages. As such, every effort should be made to conserve irrigation water at the field level, in distribution systems, and in water storages, as any water lost that has already been pumped is simply lost energy expenditure.

In the most recent Australian Cotton Grower Survey (2014), irrigated SMEs were asked whether they had made any changes to improve the efficiency of water pumping. The three most common actions identified by the respondents were: replacing pumps (56 per cent), replacing pump engines (47 per cent) and increasing attention to maintenance schedules (30 per cent). These activities reflect the emphasis on Level 3 pump efficiency assessments undertaken as part of this project and the relatively high proportion and variation of energy consumption for irrigation.