Photo courtesy of USDA NRCS

Is there a future for solar-powered farm equipment?

Solar energy has the power to not only change the way vehicles drive on the highway, but on the farm too. In fact, solar power can ease the demand from farms for oil and gas in more ways than one. In addition to converting tractors to run with the help of solar panels, solar powered water pump systems and solar lighting can be utilized by farmers today too.

For more on solar-powered farm tractors, see:

Steve Heckeroth's page:
Renewables.com

John Howe's page:
Solar Car and Tractor.com

 

Article - Transportation

Why Not Build Your Own
Solar-Powered Lawn Mower?
By Yasha Husain
First appeared in The Sunday Gazette (Schenectady, NY)
August 12, 2007

For anyone looking for a project to keep them busy this summer, how about building a solar-powered lawn mower?

By doing a simple Google search and punching in "solar powered electric lawn mowers," a handful of sites will come up offering step-by-step instructions for how to convert a gas-powered mower to run on solar power.

The sites are replete with information from weathered tinkerers; they include listings of the parts needed, including: a used or old mower (or a new gas or electric mower), an electric motor that runs from a 12-volt battery, and a solar panel.

Benefits from making the conversion: zero emissions (not counting the emissions involved in the manufacture of parts); savings (since there won't be a need anymore to buy gas for the lawn mower); noise reduction (the electric motor has a relaxing sound reminiscent of a large fan); and know-how (look at the mower as a steppingstone toward bigger and better solar home-improvement projects).

Significant polluter

According to the EPA, up to 5 percent of the nation's air pollution results from garden equipment, and in metropolitan areas, the percentage is often much higher. In 2001, a Swedish study showed that running a gas-powered lawn mower for an hour is nearly the same as driving a car for 100 miles, and that analysis, compared with others, is conservative.

As a result of the smog-forming pollution, in April of this year, the EPA proposed regulations that would require a 35 percent reduction of emissions of hydrocarbons and nitrous oxide from small, spark-igniting, off-road engines, such as lawn mowers, by the year 2011 or 2012.

Improving engine combustion and adding catalytic converters should achieve the reduction in emissions.
While the EPA's commitment is certainly a good one, it's likely not the panacea, when more and more people are chemically sensitive, and energy use worldwide is on the rise.

Converting a lawn mower to a solar-powered machine is a futuristic answer to what turns out to be a very big problem; its time seems to have come.

When building a solar-powered mower, making use of used parts as much as possible will help keep them from being dumped in landfills, and ordering nontoxic batteries, versus lead acid batteries, will help the environment tremendously, too.

Steve Heckeroth, an off-the-grid homesteader and award-winning architect in northern California, whose Web site is www.renewables.com, has been building solar-powered farm tractors that run directly off solar panels, but that house backup batteries, too. Heckeroth promotes the use of nontoxic batteries, including the nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and zinc air types, though, he writes, they may only be sold as prototypes.

To convert a push mower, it should take one or two 12-volt batteries, and about 40 amp hours, to provide the same amount of power as you'd have when using a gas-powered machine. NiMH battery packs, and, potentially, zinc air batteries, may be a good fit for the solar-powered mower.

Practical and fun

Whether purchasing nontoxic batteries, or opting for a sealed lead acid, absorbed glass mat (AGM), or gel cell battery, building a solar-powered lawn mower is a practical (and fun) endeavor, even as consumers await the next line of more eco-friendly batteries, ultra capacitors, or else solar panel units that fit directly onto a mower.

As a result of converting a mower to run on sunlight, toxic emissions in the neighborhood will drop significantly, not to mention the other benefits to be reaped.

However, there are still even greener lawn care solutions. One could go back to using a simple, walk-behind push mower, mow less often, and even mow less lawn. Rock, flower and vegetable gardens could replace trim, grass lawns. And tall grasses could begin to grow again in what are now mowed fields.