Electric tractor system for family farming: Increased autonomy and economic feasibility for an energy transition

Abstract

The majority of small family farms in underdeveloped regions lack appropriate motorized agricultural machinery that enables efficient farming and good productivity. This lack is because there is no equipment, in these regions, developed for specific small farming conditions. In general, family farms’ adoption of new technologies occurs only by technical criteria, without economic, social, or environmental considerations. This context intends to present a small-size electric farming tractor's feasibility for family farming to do energy transition between fossil energy for electrical energy. This power source was developed through a frugal innovation method. The main parameter of system optimization was the autonomy of work and this challenge was overcome through innovative planning and management of batteries in various operational configurations of energy transmission. This paper's main contribution was to demonstrate that there is economic and technical feasibility (compared with a conventional tractor) in the use of an electric tractor for small farms when there is adequate management of the use of batteries.