A fossil fuel-free cherry orchard at Mt Pisa, outside Cromwell, has taken delivery of an electric tractor to pull and power its electric sprayer.
The tractor was delivered this week on a fossil fuel-free road trip. Loxley Innovation founder Duncan Aitken towed the tractor, the Blue.E2, from Christchurch to Central Otago behind a Tesla.
The Blue.E2 was an upgrade to the original Blue.E that he converted from diesel to electric in the shed at his Christchurch home more than four years ago, for use on the 5ha farmlet he and wife, Thea Hewitt, own.
The upgrade takes the electric battery from 8.5kwh to 20kwh.
Mr Aitken, a software engineer by profession, was joined at Loxley about a year ago by co-founder and head of operations Tony Tsai, an electronics engineer he had worked with at Syft Technologies, and they decided to expand the business.
While participating in the inaugural Orion Energy Accelerator, the two started looking at innovative ways to use energy.
Mike and Rebecca Casey, owners of Forest Lodge Orchard, saw a news piece on the business and Mr Casey contacted them, looking for an electric tractor to power a sprayer that had also been converted, to become the first commercial fully electric foliar sprayer.
Mr Aitken said New Zealand had enough electricity to power electric vehicles, but the problem was at peak periods when everyone used it at once. A key part of the tractor’s design is it’s bi-directional power, giving it the ability to discharge electricity to the national grid, as well as recharging from it.
Intelligent discharging and recharging of battery power bolstered the grid, he said.
"It is optimising the resource."
With its high proportion of power generated from renewables, New Zealand was progressive in terms of its grid structures and accessibility, he said.
"We are pretty much world leaders in the way we manage the flow of energy to and from the grid," he said.
Mr Tsai added, that electric vehicles that discharged excess power back to the grid "become the solution, not a problem."
The company has ambitious goals to make New Zealand more self-sufficient in accessing electric farm machinery.
"We are looking to develop a ground-up tractor rather than conversions," he said.
- By Tracie Barrett
