Analysis of energy input dependence in use of agricultural machinery

Abstract

Indirect energy input during production processes increas as agricultural machinery gets more modern and more expensive. However, in this aspect efficiency of agricultural machinery is rarely dealt with – usually it is calculated on the economy of direct energy input (diesel fuel). While analyzing the energetics of technologies, energy equivalents of the mass of the machines and the price of the machinery are not related to the complexity. The input of intellectual labour in the field of machinery creation and applying is not estimated at all. Only energy value of manual labour is counted which makes vanishingly small part of direct energy input in mechanized technological processes [1, 2]. Changeable economic value of the machinery, increasing costs for repair works and services of the machinery, the interest of investments for the machinery, and other factors that are taken into account by methods of economic evaluation, are not estimated in the calculations of energy input. That is why inadequate principals of economic and energy evaluation of the machines and different basic indicators limit the possibility to compare operating costs of machinery work with general energy input. The aim of the research is investigation of energy input of particular agricultural machinery and machinery sets using alternative method of analysis. The essence of the research: energy value of the machines, ownership costs, labour costs and other inputs are expressed by energy equivalent according to price of appropriate amount of diesel fuel.