The Farm today with its wonderful team is a much more streamlined business, and our two main enterprises are milk production and generating renewable electricity
Situated on the coast, the surprisingly mild climate is excellent for growing grass and cereal crops. Our pedigree Holstein dairy herd graze the lands and each year produce approximately four million litres of milk.
This is processed just a few miles along the coast in Newtownards by Lakeland Dairies, an Irish farming co-operative.
The coastal location also means that on the higher parts of the Estate we benefit from higher than average wind-speeds. In 2016 we installed a 250kW wind turbine which has been harvesting this power ever since.
A little more than a year later in Summer 2017 we constructed a 200kW Anaerobic Digester beside the dairy. This large 'concrete cow' is fed twice a day with a combination of slurry and manure from the cows, and some grass and crop silage. In the absence of oxygen this breaks down anaerobically producing bio-methane. This fuels the on-site generator [not generated] producing electricity and heat. Powering the entire farm, the surplus electricity is once again exported to the grid.
A long-held (but expensive) ambition was to be able to use both the renewable electricity and heat generated on the Farm, within Ballywalter Park itself. In late 2021/early 2022 the engineering was complete. Since then every bath that is enjoyed with hot water or light that is turned on is powered by the digester.
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