By: Rebecca Kuczynski, Director of Customer Care and Marketing, Valley Clean Energy
The California Energy Commission just approved a $2.5M program to help California farmers buy electric tractors and install charging stations. Launching in Yolo County, the program will allow the tractors to charge bidirectionally and sell electricity back to the grid through Valley Clean Energy.
Yolo County, CA. — On July 10, 2024, the California Electric Commission (CEC) approved a $2.5 million grant for the first phase of a $27 million project to help California farmers purchase electric tractors and charging infrastructure. This will allow local farmers to save money on their electric bills through Valley Clean Energy’s (VCE) dynamic rates. The project is being launched in Yolo County through VCE, the region’s not-for-profit public power agency.
Gridtractor, a California-based developer of charge-management systems for electric vehicles (EVs), applied for the grant through the CEC’s Responsive, Easy Charging Products with Dynamic Signals (REDWDS) initiative. The pilot program will be called REACT, or Rural Electrification and Charging Technology.
VCE, Gridtractor, and their partner Monarch Tractor — California manufacturers of the first 100% electric, automated tractor — will offer incentives to farmers to install charging stations for Monarch tractors and other EVs on their property. Gridtractor’s charger software will allow customers to take advantage of dynamic electric rates when the cost is lowest and there are more renewables on the grid. The REDWDs grant will also bring further benefit to agricultural customers by providing backup power (from the tractor battery) should a farm lose electricity during an outage, or by exporting energy back onto the grid during peak (more expensive) hours, a process often called “bidirectional charging.”
Electrifying the nation’s agricultural vehicles could play a key role in helping Americans reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. According to a recent Smithsonian magazine article, one diesel tractor creates as much greenhouse gas and particulate pollution as 14 passenger cars. Electric tractors are still a relatively new technology and can be expensive compared to internal combustion models, but programs like REACT can make them accessible to growers and other users by offering incentives to make them the same cost or even less expensive than their diesel counterparts. Gridtractor estimates that with its groundbreaking Vehicle to Grid (V2G) capability, farmers could earn enough in three hours of export electricity to run their tractor for the rest of the week.
In addition to the REACT program, VCE also launched its AgFIT pilot in 2022. AgFIT is an innovative program that gives farmers incentives to automate their irrigation while reducing their electric bills by responding to market-based hourly price signals (dynamic rates). Because the program showed promising initial results, the California Public Utilities Commission voted to expand the pilot beyond VCE’s agricultural customers to cover PG&E’s entire service area. VCE’s role in the REACT pilot will include helping sister Community Choice agencies to implement dynamic rates for their customers.
“REACT is another great example of how we continue to deliver value to our customers by identifying challenges and working on innovative local solutions,” says Mitch Sears, Executive Officer for Valley Clean Energy. “We are focused on providing customer rate savings and a reliable grid. The REACT program allows us to do both and places VCE at the leading edge of the electricity sector.”
If the CEC approves the second, $25.5M phase of the REACT grant, VCE will help Gridtractor and Monarch Tractor expand the program’s reach to farmers across California.
About Valley Clean Energy
Valley Clean Energy — or VCE — is the public electricity provider for residential and commercial customers in Woodland, Winters, Davis, and unincorporated Yolo County. We’re a not-for-profit agency, which means that we’re working 100% for our customers. VCE keeps program control and revenues right here at home, where we can create jobs and build local clean energy projects. We reinvest dollars to boost our local economy while taking control of our clean energy future. More information is available at https://valleycleanenergy.org/.
