Full electric farming with on-field energy replenishment

The transition of heavy machinery systems in agriculture is becoming increasingly urgent due to evolving regulations, market volatility in fossil fuels, and the imperative to achieve decarbonization objectives in the sector. Agricultural machinery has recently experienced an increase in automation, resulting in a higher implementation of electric actuators and systems in agricultural machinery. This, combined with the higher energy efficiency of electric powertrains and the potential of local energy generation on farms, makes full electrification of these systems increasingly attractive. In this article, a new model capable of simulating electric non-road heavy machinery systems with a local grid-connected energy management system and two on-field energy replenishment modes: on-field battery exchange and charging, is presented. The model is built as a discrete event simulation, and planning algorithms are implemented to enable agent cooperation and process optimization. Moreover, the model is configured with real-world weather, geographical, and operational data collected from two participating Swedish farms, and two case studies are conducted, simulating full electric field operation on the farms. The results show that it is possible to perform the fieldwork with a process time consumption that is only 5% higher than a diesel-driven machine system baseline while consuming just 37.5% of the energy. The effects of different battery sizes, grid connection power levels, and energy replenishment modes are explored, and the impact on the total process effectiveness and electrical system load is shown. It is concluded that although a battery-based system can reach similar process effectiveness to its diesel counterpart, the batteries in the system must have an alternative use during periods of low farming activity for the system to be economically competitive.