Fuel savings in agricultural equipment
Faced with the rise in non-road diesel (NHR) prices since late 2021, it is important to optimize the use of fossil fuels to limit costs.
In this dossier, you will find an overview of the situation in spring 2022 as well as a set of solutions to implement on farms to reduce fuel consumption of agricultural equipment.
Context
Evolution and trend
Since April 2020 and a low point linked to the health crisis at 18 dollars per barrel, the Brent price has been continuously rising, driven by the global economic recovery.
It reached 97 dollars in February 2022 (source: Reuters and Directorate General for Energy and Climate). This increase has continued since February with strong fluctuations caused by supply uncertainties related to the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.
According to the Ministry of Ecological Transition, the price of NHR reached its highest value on March 11 at €1.2532/liter, excluding VAT and excluding TICPE (Domestic Tax on Energy Products) for deliveries under 5,000 liters.
Compared to an average value over the last 6 months of €0.7878, the fuel portion of NHR has therefore increased by 59%. This represents an additional cost of €43/ha on the technical itinerary of a winter cereal from its establishment (plowing method) to harvest (based on 91 liters/ha).
| March 11, 2022 (*) | Cost/liter | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel | €1.2532 | 72% |
| TICPE | €0.1882 | 11% |
| Total excluding VAT | 1.4414 | - |
| VAT (20%) | €0.2883 | 17% |
| Total including VAT | €1.7297 |
Source: Ministry of Ecological Transition for deliveries under 5,000 liters.
Advice
Remember to request partial TICPE reimbursement
NHR benefits from a reduced TICPE rate: €18.82/hectoliter (compared to €59.40/hectoliter for road diesel)
NHR used specifically by the agricultural sector (farms, agricultural contracting companies, and CUMA) is subject to a super reduced rate of €3.86/hectoliter.
To benefit from this advantage, you must apply to the tax administration by submitting an annual partial TICPE reimbursement request. You will then be reimbursed €14.96/hectoliter of fuel consumed.
This procedure is done by e-filing via the Chorus Pro portal, reporting your consumption from the previous year.
What level of savings can be expected?
| Work categories | Work | NHR in liters | Unit | Potential gain via practices, adjustments, driving | Favorable factors |
| Soil work and sowing (light and medium soils) | Deep loosening | 15 to 20 | ha | Light soils, reasoned working depth, friable soils | |
| Superficial loosening | 10 to 15 | ha | |||
| Classic stubble cultivation | 7 to 10 | ha | |||
| Superficial stubble cultivation | 3.5 to 6 | ha | |||
| Plowing | 10 to 20 | ha | |||
| Soil preparation (sowing) | 5 to 15 | ha | |||
| Combined sowing (superficial work) | 10 to 15 | ha | |||
| Combined sowing (deep work) | 14 to 20 | ha | |||
| Simplified sowing | 7 to 10 | ha | |||
| Direct sowing | 4 to 7 | ha | |||
| Solo sowing | 3 to 7 | ha | |||
| Fertilization - Treatment - Mechanical weeding Crops | Manure spreading (in field) | 0.15 to 0.3 | m3 | ||
| Slurry spreading | 0.3 to more than 1 |
m3 | Short distance (<3 km), volume | ||
| Spraying | 0.4 to 1.3 | ha | Capacity, width, dose | ||
| Hoeing, spring-tooth harrow, rotary hoe… | 2 to 4 | ha | Guidance | ||
| Harvesting work | Classic mowing | 3.5 to 6 | ha | Yield, large width | |
| Conditioner mowing | 4 to 7 | ha | |||
| Tedding | 1.5 to 2.5 | ha | |||
| Windrowing | 1.5 to 3 | ha | |||
| Round bale pressing | 0.3 to 0.6 | bale | Large diameter, net wrapping | ||
| Square bale pressing | 1.2 to 2 | t | |||
| Wrapping baler | 0.4 to 0.7 | bale | Yield, diameter 140 | ||
| Silage loader wagon | 5 to 12 | ha | Short distance (<3 km - 70 m3/trip) | ||
| Corn silage | 1.9 to 2.3 | t DM |
Soil work (decompaction, plowing) are those for which savings related to practices are the most significant.
Caution point
Road consumption
With a payload (CU) / empty weight (PV) ratio close to 1 and an average engine load rate of 40%, road consumption during transport is not favorable for the agricultural tractor.
It averages 70l/100km for a 200hp tractor. Compare this to a heavy truck consumption usually between 30 and 40l/100km for a CU/PV ratio above 1.5.
Remember to limit road trips with an agricultural tractor.
For long distances, opt for an appropriate road transport solution.
Fuel-saving practices
Tractor maintenance
“Energy-saving” oils allow to save 2 to 3% of NHR but are more fluid and reduce engine braking.
For air filter cleaning, follow the manufacturer's recommendations carefully, gently blowing from inside out or tapping the filter on the tire.
Do not let the tractor idle
Tractors idle on average 20% of the time, which currently represents €600/year of NHR, not to mention the loss of value when reselling the tractor.
It takes 7 g of NHR to restart a 150hp tractor, and economically it is profitable to turn off the engine after one minute.
Tire pressure, hitching rule
Reducing consumption also involves optimizing traction.
In the field, lower tire pressures improve traction, which reduces consumption by, for example, 11% as in the European Efficient20 project.
The correct pressure to apply must also take into account the mass distribution on the hitch and the necessary ballast.
Finally, tool hitching (convergence at the three-point hitch) and their adjustment are elements to consider for working under the most economical conditions.
Eco-driving
Using the PTO (power take-off) eco mode saves about 20% fuel but only when the tool is undersized relative to the tractor.
The engine speed will be lowered to around 1500-1600 rpm while preserving the standardized PTO speed, 540 or 1000 rpm.
Adapt tractor size to the attached equipment
Heavier, with a more robust mechanics, the large tractor requires more energy to move.
With equipment requiring little power, even using the “economic” PTO speed, consumption remains unfavorable.
Example: Windrower 7.5m → 3.2 l/ha with 135 hp → 1.8 l/ha with 85 hp (6 ha at 4 km)
Adapt your soil work practices
Carefully observe soil structure (spade test) and if there are no agronomic contraindications, work less deeply.
Example: 1 cm of soil → 140 to 150 tons of earth per hectare → 0.5 to 1 l of NHR per cm worked, depending on tools and intervention conditions.
For deep work such as decompaction, limit work to wheel tracks.
Simplify and organize your on-call work well
The following practices reduce NHR consumption:
- reduce the number of distribution days by increasing grazing time to mobilize tools less
- work with simple rations, reducing mixes, to limit trips between storage and mixer wagon
- avoid “grocery shopping” by making larger animal batches to minimize trips between batches
- prepare silos, feed before starting equipment, to limit times when tractors idle
- pre-cut long fibers at harvest rather than using full cutting in the mixer wagon
- unroll round bales
- have grouped storage to avoid multiple handling and transport trips.
Example: for forage distribution → 2 to 10 l/day for 100 LU depending on farms.
Value autoguidance
If some tractors are equipped with autoguidance, the fuel consumption gain can be significant, especially for soil work.
Arvalis showed that the overlap gain between manual driving and RTK autoguidance varies depending on the work (see table).
| Operation performed | Soil work | Sowing | Spraying/Fertilization |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overlap gain | 13 % | 5 % | 2 % |
Thanks to a simulator available within the network, it is possible to calculate the NHR consumption saved thanks to RTK autoguidance.
At the scale of a 190 ha farm in field crops (cereals, rapeseed, beets) and considering all passes made with autoguidance over a full year, the NHR saving amounts to 830 liters.
This fuel saving adds to the comfort gain provided by this technology.
Advice: Free RTK
Thanks to the Centipede network, it is now possible to benefit from centimeter-level correction of the RTK type without an annual subscription.
Limit road trips
The use of connected devices in CUMA of Bourgogne Franche-Comté allowed analysis of 382 stubble cultivation operations. The distance traveled off-field averages 9.9 km (from 3.5 to 12.4 km for 50% of the sample); it represents 30% of the total distance traveled.
Calculated per operation and per area worked, average NHR consumption is 10.5 l/ha.
It decreases with increasing working width (12.7 to 8.3 l/ha for independent disc harrows from 3 to 5 m). For the most distant operations, NHR consumption increases by 17% (+1.8 l/ha). For the most distant and smallest, it increases by 43% (+4.3 l/ha).
Remember to optimize your trips by organizing your operations and avoiding too short work sequences (15.4% of stubble cultivation situations analyzed).
Beyond 12 km distance to travel and 2.5 km/ha worked (8.6% of situations analyzed), consider mutual aid to delegate work or service provision.
Increase your storage capacity
In such a fluctuating context, only the government rebate of €0.15 excl. VAT/liter implemented as part of the resilience plan and promised until July 31 has the peculiarity of being fixed.
But, at an average investment of €1 excl. VAT per liter of storage, it will not be sufficient to justify purchasing additional storage capacity since you will need nearly 7 refills to break even!
It will probably be difficult to be profitable at once but if the opportunity arises, do not forget to take into account the manufacturer's delivery time.
| Average investment cost in storage | Hypothesis of NHR price fluctuation (in €/liter) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.15 | 0.25 | 0.35 | 0.45 (*) |
0.6 | |
| €1/liter | 6.7 | 4 | 2.8 | 2 | 1.7 |
(*) Fluctuation between the price observed on March 11, 2022 and the smoothed average over the last six months.
Reminder: If you choose to store NHR for a long period, we recommend choosing the so-called “superior” version to guarantee prolonged conservation time and optimal protection during winter.
Incorporate pure vegetable oil into NHR
Very popular in the early 2000s, when NHR price was around €0.8/liter, the use of pure vegetable oil (*) as fuel was considered in two ways:
- by incorporating it at 30 or 50% into NHR
- by installing a dual-fuel kit to allow operation at nearly 100%.
At the time, the concept never gained unanimous technical support, especially among manufacturers, although later two of them produced adapted engines: Deutz Agrotron Natural Power in 2007 and John Deere Multifuel in 2013 (not marketed).
Today, the subject of fuel oil is virtually undisputed since food oil shortages are discussed. Moreover, with rapeseed prices around €850/ton for seed and €450/ton for meal, the cost price of one liter of oil would be about €1.90, more expensive than NHR.
Reminder: Current engines are designed to run on fuels meeting EN 590 standard, i.e. diesel or NHR type. Using other types of fuels would call into question, in case of failure, the manufacturer's contractual warranty.
(*) Not to be confused with biodiesel or Diester, produced by esterification of pure oil and currently incorporated in small proportions (up to 7%) in diesel and NHR.
CAUTION
Prevent thefts
When fuel prices rise, thefts intensify.
To better prevent them, register for free in your department's alert system: “Alerte Agri” or “Agri vigilance”.
You receive theft alert SMS sent by the gendarmerie.
Operational systems in departments 19, 21, 26, 28, 36, 37, 41, 44, 45, 51, 55, 56, 71, 85
Source
This document was written in May 2022 by the agricultural equipment referent group of the Chambers of Agriculture led by Nicolas Walter, agricultural equipment project manager at APCA: https://www.inrae.fr/sites/default/files/bonnes_pratiques_economes_en_carburant.pdf
La version initiale de cet article a été rédigée par Nicolas Walter, Gérard Besnier, Didier Debroize, Sylvain Deseau, Stéphane Grand, Didier Langlois, Aymeric Lepage, Christian Savary et Richard Wylleman.
