[RE-wrenches] Array direct farm machinery?

[Eric Youngren]

Howdy Wrenches,

We are thinking up new ideas for powering agriculture in the rural
developing world to propose for the new USAID "Energy Grand Challenge for
Development" <http://www.poweringag.org>

One idea is to build PV array direct water pumping systems for irrigation
that could be converted to power productive use farm machinery for grain
milling, oil pressing or other farm processing jobs after the harvest is
in.  The idea being that after the harvest they don't need the irrigation
pumping for a bit and the PV array could be switched over to drive a motor
to accomplish a mechanical task.  For that matter if it was an easy swap
(Anderson 2 pole connectors, dual battery boat switches, etc) between the
pumping load and the machinery load the same PV array could be used on any
given day to either run the pump or the machine(s).     I'd like to avoid
batteries altogether and I'd like to allow a single 1 to 3 kW PV array to
accomplish multiple array direct mechanical tasks.

This is just a brainstorm at this point,  maybe this is a crazy idea and
not worth pursuing, but I'd be really curious if anybody has any experience
doing anything like this or any other ideas to bring to the table.

Any ideas?  Thanks!

Eric Youngren
Solar Nexus International
www.solarnexusinternational.com
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