Cars, buses, trucks: many vehicles have long been powered by electric drives. In agricultural technology it is more complicated – not least because large agricultural machines require a lot of energy.
But the now planned reduction in subsidies for agricultural diesel makes the question more pressing: When will tractors, combine harvesters, etc. no longer depend on diesel?
Electricity – for the farm loader and smaller tractors
First of all: According to experts in agricultural technology, an electric solution on a broad level will not be possible. But in certain areas of work, the change to electric drives should succeed quickly, as Edgar Remmele says. He is head of the Renewable Fuels and Materials Department at the Competence Center for Renewable Resources in Straubing.
In his opinion, work in animal husbandry such as feeding will soon be carried out “almost entirely using battery power”. “I firmly believe that this will be a sure-fire success because farmers will then be able to operate their machines, such as farm loaders or feed mixers, very cheaply using self-generated photovoltaic electricity.” At the moment, devices with electric drives are still comparatively expensive to purchase. If they became cheaper, they would quickly conquer the farms.
Smaller tractors with electric drives could soon be on the road in greater numbers, for example among vegetable and fruit farmers or in municipalities. The Allgäu manufacturer Fendt, for example, announced at the Agritechnica trade fair in November that it would produce an electric tractor from the fourth quarter of 2024. Also at Agritechnica, New Holland presented a battery-powered municipal tractor.
For large tractors that pull heavy liquid manure tanks or tons of grain, or even for combine harvesters and forage harvesters, electric drives are at best a distant dream of the future. The batteries would be far too large and heavy and would not be able to deliver anywhere near the performance of a diesel engine.
Biodiesel and Co. “ready for practice”
Liquid and gaseous energy sources will not be replaceable in the future, says Tobias Ehrhard, managing director of agricultural technology at the Association of German Mechanical and Plant Engineering (VDMA). “After all, the power requirement along the entire agricultural production chain is immense. Electric drives will not be an alternative in the foreseeable future.”
Many experts therefore rely on vegetable oil fuel, biodiesel or hydrogenated vegetable oils (HVO). “These fuels are ready for practical use and could be used in agricultural machinery as long as the manufacturers have given appropriate approval,” said Remmele. “So far there has been little demand for the fuels because they were not cost-effective compared to diesel fuel.”
This could change soon. But one obstacle remains: Given the impact of the war in Ukraine, the federal government actually wanted to move away from producing fuel from arable crops.
Remmele says: “Biofuels are always criticized because they naturally use up space. But I am of the opinion that agriculture in particular can and should use these oil-based fuels from the raw materials they produce themselves.” Because: “When producing vegetable oil-based biofuels, a protein-rich feed is obtained as a co-product. This feed replaces soy imports from South America. This would ultimately kill two birds with one stone.”
In addition, says Remmele, with the increasing electrification of cars and small vans, less diesel is being consumed and therefore less biofuel is needed for the blend. These quantities could be used where electrification is not possible.
The VDMA primarily praises biogenic fuels made from hydrogenated vegetable oils (HVO). “They ensure that CO2 emissions are reduced by up to 90 percent compared to fossil diesel. A better and faster contribution to climate protection is hardly available,” says Ehrhard. Of course, the intensive debate about the agricultural technology drives of the future has been going on for a long time. Finally, the EU has also set climate targets for agriculture to reduce emissions.
Question marks and obstacles regarding hydrogen and methane
Saving diesel is important for the majority of European farmers, emphasized the organizers of the agricultural technology trade fair Agritechnica in November. In addition to plant fuels and electric drives, hydrogen and methane were also presented as alternatives at the trade fair – but there are question marks and obstacles: “The space required for the pressure vessels for the compressed hydrogen is large,” it said. A similar problem arises with methane: the energy density is lower than with diesel. “This requires large tanks or additional tanks and results in a shorter range due to limited storage capacities.”
It is currently unclear whether agriculture can rely on government help when switching to alternative drives. The federal energy efficiency program of the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE), which was intended to support the industry in reducing CO2 emissions, is currently on hold – as a result of the Karlsruhe ruling on the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF).
