$5000 will pay for enough solar panels to generate real-time 120 volt power, controllers and several deep-cycle rechargable batteries, paid for an delivered.
Not enough to power a tractor real-time, but certainly enough to charge enough batteries to run an electric tractor through 40 acres every couple days, perhaps even every day if a back-up battery pack were possible.
Seriously I’m looking (realtime) at an electric scooter right now as I post this - which I use (most recently yesterday afternoon) for weekend trips to the store - takes about an hour to recharge, zero gas required, and which can in fact be charged via solar in a pinch (though I use 120v ac charging since it’s a lot faster, as long as the grid is functioning)
Let’s please not let our instinctive opposition to ideas the left attempts to force upon America, blind us the the stopped clock every once in a while being right.
Solar is, where climate permits, very truly virtually free.
I mean, after the start-up costs. Which are not insignificant.
run an electric tractor through 40 acres every couple days, maybe if you’re just driving the electric tractor like a car, but at about 6 gallons per working hour for a good-sized diesel tractor, and a rough equivalent of 30 kilowatt hours per gallon of diesel, 5 hours of field work will cost your battery pack maybe 900 kwh. That’ll take 37.5 Nissan Leaf batterys, at $12,000 each. Batteries for your electric tractor alone cost $450,000, by my calc.
so ya wanta go splitsies on an all-electric alfalfa farm? I’ll put up all the labor, if you supply the startup.