With talk of renewable energy used in homes and city life, a lot of people may not be aware that solar energy has reached farms. There are solar-electric powered tractors, lawn mowers and electric tools, which are helping make farms cleaner and less reliant on gas and other fossil-fuels.

Some of the limitations of electric cars are positives for electric tractors. According to an article at Mother Earth News, “The extra weight of batteries is a disadvantage in automobiles, but it improves tractor performance by increasing traction. And electric motors generate high torque at very low rpm, making them more effective than gas or diesel engines for the low-speed, high-power applications typical for tractors.”

Being able to cut down on the noise and the smelly exhaust are two great reasons for farmers to switch to solar. Some farmers have created their own solar-power tractors, and a couple US and European companies sell solar-power tractors. And even more innovations are coming.

Recently Austria-based Open Energy announced that they will  be launching a tractor completely powered by the energy of the sun by 2010. The tractors will carry photovoltaic panels that can be adjusted to catch as much sunlight as possible. According to Open Energy, making the panels movable would increase the efficiency by 40% when compared with fixed panels. This will allow the tractor to run constantly for approximately 36 hours on simple jobs such as watering or weeding. The tractor will not run as long if doing a heavier duty job (such as plowing), so the tractor is designed for those smaller energy jobs.

Companies and farmers are taking large steps in helping farms become environmentally friendly and hopefully there’s more innovations in the future.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Solar Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.