An electric farm, an electric harvest …. electric everything

There’s a meme floating around on various social media platforms that an electric tractor would find it virtually impossible to do, say, 6,000 ha for seeding.

The assumption is that the 30,000 litres of diesel needed for 35 days of seeding is roughly equivalent to 320 megawatt hours fuel – and they contend that an electric tractor couldn’t do this.

Because why? Well they say these numbers are impossibly big for an electric tractor to work.

But you need to start the calculation at the right point:

First of all, an efficient electric tractor only needs around 1/3 of that diesel – just 110 MWh over 35 days – if you eliminate the thermal inefficiencies of internal combustion engines.

An electric tractor, therefore, will need to consume around 3.1 MWh/day, and that can be met by around 1 ha of solar and about 2.5 MWh of batteries 

An electric tractor is entirely operationally feasible on energy grounds. See: Autonomous electric tractors headed to Australia with pitch to farmers

In normal Australian solar conditions, about 1 ha of optimally sited PV at ~600 kW can generate around 3.5 MWh per day on average, and this is paired with roughly 2.5 MWh of batteries, that’s enough juice to spread that energy over 16‑hour operating days maintaining a practical duty cycle. 

Fast DC charging allows packs to be recharged quickly, or you can work with modular 400–800 kWh battery packs that are swapped in and out, an approach already used routinely in several heavy vehicle sector uses globally.

Further efficiency gains from replacing central hydraulics with dedicated electric drives, plus smarter control of ancillary loads, reduce electricity needs further.

So even these conservative assumptions reveal the “impossible energy use, battery sizes and huge solar area to supply” claim collapses once realistic use-cases, efficiencies and on‑farm solar are considered.

And why do it? 

Leaving aside the oil crisis and oil security, the core driver is economics: diesel is expensive and the price volatile, while self‑generated electricity from farm solar plus batteries displaces diesel deliveries, diesel storage, and ongoing fuel bills, with the same solar‑battery system available to power all farm operations year‑round.

Farms need to be electric – because, once this kit is scaled appropriately, on-farm costs will be so much lower.

Electric farm, electric harvest, electric everything