PL5_Paper - Sustainable Energy Supply For Agricultural Machinery The Sesam Vision

Sustainable energy supply from renewable resources will be one of the top issues of society and of environmental policies in the long term. Agriculture should be a key driving force for renewable energy, because it is the sector which not only consumes, but also has the potential to produce large amounts of renewable energy which will be the most important non-food product of agriculture.
The energy balance of agricultural production systems is generally positive, while costs for energy from fossil sources (e.g. fuel) and energy equivalent inputs (e.g. fertilizer) are continuously increasing. Therefore, farmers increasingly establish own energy production lines to substitute fossil energy sources. Energy production is becoming more and more an integral part of agricultural production systems.
Due to the characteristics of energy consuming applications, two basic types of energy supply can be distinguished. The first type is energy supply to stationary applications. The second type is energy supply to mobile machinery which is technologically challenging with respect to the (electric, chemical, or electro-chemical) energy carrier needed to bring the energy onto the vehicles.