Solar For Agriculture

While few people living in cities give much thought to the agricultural sector (despite the fact that we all eat), there are quite a few tasks uniquely suited to solar power for agriculture. Indeed, not only is solar power often the best solution among several, but it may, in fact, be the only solution in areas not served by the electrical grid. When using solar for agriculture, you should very carefully consider just what you need and then add 20% to be on the safe side, especially if you have animals relying on you to keep them safe and healthy.

Very often, when moving out to a new parcel of land, you (and your neighbours, if you have any yet) will be granted the opportunity to give the power company thousands and thousands of dollars to run existing power lines out to your place. A great may landowners decide to go without and instead, get together at the town diner or town hall and talk about putting in solar for their homes and farms.

Agricultural solar systems can be especially useful in situations that require remote (and often movable) pumping or portable electric fencing. In the case of ranching or keeping any type of agricultural animal, solar power can be used to keep ice off the livestock’s water dish.

Photovoltaic (PV) systems are often particularly useful in the case of electric fencing with a fairly small battery. This way, when something touches the fence, it will get a real, useful jolt from a deep cycle battery that has, essentially, been trickle charged all day from the solar panels. While the current tends to be relatively low, electric fencing voltages are quite high, often in the thousands of volts so it can take a few hours at least to build up an adequate charge. It is recommended that rancher using solar get a feel for just how long it takes to get a good charge going before trusting their animals to it and then finding them down the road at you neighbour’s place.

In the case of horticulture, there are quite a few tools that can be adapted to use with solar and electric systems, such as the solar powered golf cart to go between blocks of plants quickly or, even an electric sheers to keep a large volume of potted ornamentals from going out with uneven branching.

Very often, the systems that control propagation booms and water are in a very good position to operate on solar power, though it will likely have to be inverted first and probably stored in some type of battery or large capacitor. Panels for greenhouse operations are almost always mounted on poles to keep from casting shadows in the house itself.