California-based Gridtractor has emerged from stealth to launch charging technology, fleet electrification and energy management services for electric tractors and heavy farm equipment.

As a partial subsidiary of Polaris Energy Services, Gridtractor’s intelligent energy management and vehicle grid integration services can help farms transition to a zero-emission, electrified future, starting with its first user Terranova Ranch.

Electrifying one medium-sized tractor can reduce carbon emissions by as much as replacing 45 cars with EVs. Gridtractor says it will help farmers seamlessly integrate electric charging and vehicle to grid (V2G) into their operations to strengthen the power grid with its smart energy platform.

In addition, the company estimates farms can save 55 to 75 per cent on fuel costs by going electric, and up to 90 per cent by supplying stored power to irrigation pumps and to the grid.

Terranova Ranch in California will use the Gridtractor Planning Model software-as-a-service (SaaS) to determine the best deployments for electric tractors and integration with existing electrical infrastructure at dozens of irrigation pump sites and solar arrays.

“Working alongside Gridtractor towards a better environment is a win-win for both our customers and California’s agricultural industry, which produces at least one-third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the country’s fruits and nuts,” said Don Cameron, vice president at Terranova Ranch. “For over forty years, our team has paid special attention to sustainability and keeping our soil, water and air quality as healthy as possible, which is critical to ensuring long-term crop viability and employee wellness. We are taking this one step further with our partnership with Gridtractor to reduce emissions and transform energy use at our ranch.”

As a partially-owned subsidiary of Polaris Energy Services, whose management team contributed to seed financing for the company, Gridtractor will leverage existing on-farm electrical services with new charging and monitoring technology to manage electric tractor operations, including automated reports that alert operators and the Gridtractor operations centre when something is not working correctly.

The company is developing control hardware and SaaS that will help farmers manage fleets of tractors, irrigation pumps and solar arrays to optimise the economics of energy production, consumption and storage. The company is launching operations in California initially to take advantage of the extensive electrical infrastructure on farms, lucrative incentives for electrification, and pilots for vehicle grid integration (VGI).

As part of the company’s turnkey service offering, Gridtractor will provide farm operators with site and project managers to assist with implementation and liaison with utility companies and electrical contractors to ensure the technology is deployed and operating efficiently. Like several charging-as-a-service models for electric bus fleets, Gridtractor CEO David Meyers sees excellent potential for this in the agricultural community.

“While observing the rapid acceleration in EV adoption, especially in the heavy-duty sector, we realised that agriculture is an underserved industry in electrification,” said Meyers. “And considering the emissions generated by one tractor, we believe it is critical to help farmers adopt this technology faster and more seamlessly. The longest pole in the tent for transportation electrification is building out the infrastructure to support a massive increase in demand on the grid and, with the vehicle-to-grid component, we can essentially turn an electric tractor into a giant battery. We estimate that on top of the field savings, farmers can save 15 per cent for smart charging and vehicle-to-load and vehicle-to-grid applications, for a total of 90% cost savings that will be supplemented by lower maintenance and repair costs.”

With local and regional incentives, California farmers have funding opportunities to help offset electrification costs. For example, the San Joaquin Air Resources Board’s agricultural tractor replacement programme provides incentive funds for the replacement of in-use, off-road mobile equipment that is engaged in agricultural operations. In addition, Polaris was recently awarded a $2.9m grant from the California Energy Commission to roll out its automation technology that manages agricultural energy resources to reduce net peak load on California’s grid.

Polaris Energy Services manages a network of more than 500 irrigation and water conveyance pumps connected in the field to Polaris pump automation controllers and third-party systems, representing 75MW of peak load that can be shifted when the grid is stressed.

Terranova Ranch produces more than 25 premium quality conventional and organic crops as effectively, productively and sustainably as possible on over 6000 acres in the central San Joaquin Valley of California.