Monarch Tractor, maker of a totally electrical autonomous tractor, and its Farm Electrification Consortium companions have obtained a $3-million grant from the California Vitality Fee (CEC) to speed up electrification of agricultural tools and reveal the flexibility of batteries in on-farm tools to maintain crucial electrical masses operating throughout energy outages which can be initiated with higher frequency on account of wildfires.
The consortium includes Monarch Tractor, Gridtractor, Rhombus Vitality Options, Present Methods, and Polaris Vitality Companies.
Along with emergency eventualities, the consortium will develop and reveal know-how to allow farmers to make use of tractors to reply to circumstances on the facility grid by charging and discharging batteries to produce irrigation pumps and different on-farm masses in response to dynamic costs and demand response occasions.
The consortium will develop {hardware}, software program and communications applied sciences to hyperlink tractors and charging tools to fleet operation facilities and grid administration programs.
Farm tools electrification can’t solely present dramatic financial savings for growers however allow them to take management of their vitality. For the grid, agriculture is one sector in California with {the electrical} infrastructure already in place to assist speedy EV adoption. With the backing of the CEC, this undertaking will assist constructing, deploying and testing the applied sciences required to make the most of that chance.
—David Meyers, CEO of Gridtractor
Monarch Tractor’s MK-V tractor combines electrification, automation, machine studying, and knowledge evaluation to reinforce farmer’s present operations, improve labor productiveness and security, and maximize yields to chop overhead prices and emissions.
