Saving electricity for different operating conditions on center pivot systems planting

Abstract

In this analysis were simulated potential of electricity consumption in center pivot system operating in different conditions of uniformity of water application and climatic conditions for the cultivation of beans in winter no-tillage and conventional. To this end, we developed a spreadsheet for analysis in various operating conditions, whose input information were the hydraulic characteristics of the center pivot system, owned by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa); climatic data; coefficient of uniformity of water application and; crop coefficient of beans grown under conventional and no-tillage. To this end, they employed the time series of climate variables with 24 years of daily observations collected at the weather station of Embrapa. Based on the simulations it was found that the increase in energy consumption by center pivot was more sensitive to variations in power spray jet with climatic conditions and that on average there was a reduction in energy consumption by 17.2%, when replacing the conventional tillage system by no- tillage.