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INNOVATION IN PRACTICE
New Zealand farmers are well- accustomed to turning sunlight into food and fibre. Now, as Mike Casey writes, there’s an opportunity to turn that sunlight into something else that will benefit New Zealand and the rural sector: renewable electricity. Rise of the electric farm
electric Monarch tractor - with a combination of solar panels, batteries, and New Zealand’s highly renewable grid. We save tens of thousands of dollars a year on diesel fuel and because we’ve built enough gen- eration and storage capacity, we can make tens of thousands more by exporting excess energy to the grid at times of peak demand. We’ve also slashed emissions by around 95 per cent compared to the old-school approach.
Have you ever tasted an electric cherry? That’s what I grow in Central Otago, New Zealand, and, while I may be slightly biased, I reckon they’re the most de- licious cherries in the world. But there’s something else they taste like: the future of farming. At Forest Lodge Orchard near Cromwell, our claim to fame is that we have swapped all the fos- sil fuel machines, that cherry orchards tradition- ally use, for electric equivalents and we power 21 of these machines - including New Zealand’s first
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