Renewable energy in agriculture: farmers Willingness-to-Pay for a photovoltaic electric farm tractor

Abstract The European Union has fixed the 2020 renewable energy targets on 20% of energy obtained by renewable energy, and it posed limitation to the biofuel production by agriculture. Photovoltaic electricity may represent a clean method for generating electricity for agriculture. This paper focuses on a multi-functional full electric battery tractor; the willingness-to-pay is studied to evaluate potential consumer's preferences toward electric tractor attributes with respect to the conventional ones, by applying a choice experiment to investigate on consumer decision making toward technical, environmental features among three different tractors, and considering farm characteristics.