Program Background

Our Mission

Ag Energy NY works with New York State extension educators, farm service providers, and farmers to improve energy efficiency. This program develops educational content and conducts outreach.

Our aim is to support farmers with:

  • Better understanding farm energy use
  • Evaluating efficient technologies, alternate modes of operation, and practices that optimize energy use
  • Making sound investment decisions based on accessible, up-to-date information
  • Incorporating efficiency into the decision-making process

To accomplish this, we offer:

  • Guidance and outreach resources to help farmers better understand energy use
  • Training and assistance for educators to conduct local outreach about farm energy use
  • Connection with service providers who can provide site-specific expert advice for farmers
  • Assistance identifying appropriate energy efficiency grants, loans, and rebates

 In 2020, a state-wide agriculture and energy extension effort led by Cornell Cooperative Extension Tompkins County (CCE Tompkins) began as part of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) project Energy Best Practices for Agriculture. Visit the NYSERDA Agriculture page for a broad overview of NYSERDA’s work for farmers.

The Ag Energy NY webpage and its outreach resources are developed by CCE Tompkins. Technical content and guidance is collaboratively provided by energy efficiency experts from the Daylight Savings Company, Taitem Engineering, and GDS Associates. Factsheets are designed and reviewed by NYSERDA. This project is an extension of information compiled by EnSave in the report Energy Efficiency in New York State Agriculture: Summary of Energy Efficiency Programs and Research Opportunities, prepared for NYSERDA in 2015. That information is improved on with findings from Daylight Savings Company, based on decades of work conducting agriculture energy audits and consulting on farm energy efficiency upgrades. Citations are provided when information on this website comes from other sources.

To help improve this resource, we are engaged in an ongoing process of soliciting and incorporating feedback from Cornell Cooperative Extension staff and university experts from New York and the surrounding region.

Who We Are

Areas of Interest

Ag Energy NY focuses on several farm sectors, in addition to energy efficiency guidance that applies across farm sectors. Energy efficiency information is compiled specifically for crops and vegetables, cattle and beef, swine, orchards and vineyards, poultry and eggs, grain drying, and maple. This is designed to fill a niche that has historically not been included in the energy efficiency programs of utility companies, which tend to focus on farm sectors with the highest energy demands: dairy and greenhouse operations.

For energy efficiency resources specific to dairy or greenhouse operations, see the NYSERDA Energy Best Practices for Agriculture program page.

This program is designed with accessibility in mind, striving to offer resources that are welcoming and helpful for diverse audiences. This website and other Ag Energy NY outreach content are designed to meet standards of digital accessibility, using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. These guidelines have three levels of compliance – A, AA, and AAA – and we aim for the level AA compliance, in accordance with Cornell University norms.

While we attempt to follow these standards from the start and always try to improve, we recognize there may be instances where we do not meet all of the accessibility needs of our audiences. In those cases, we welcome you to Contact Us with accessibility requests, and our team will do the best we can to offer information in alternative formats. We also encourage all our audience members to give us feedback on this program, its resources, and its direction, as we value participatory steering of this program to best meet our audiences’ needs.

Accessibility