Sweden is testing a semi-truck trailer covered in 100 square meters of solar panels::A Swedish manufacturer wants to harness green energy from a cargo trailer’s free real estate.
Putting solar on moving vehicles makes no sense except for very specific use cases.
Install those same panels on the ground and you can point them at a good angle for sunlight capture 24/7, don’t have to literally carry the weight of them everywhere, don’t have to worry about them getting dirty all the time from moving around winter roads, and are much easier to repair.
Rough estimate of 72 cell panels at 2m² and 500W per panel puts this at a peak performance of 25kw. More than twice the average home installation.
Yes, but also much less efficient due to the angles. These panels are either completely flat or completely vertical. Ideal conditions have them facing south at an angle.
It’s free real estate.
I swear it seems like some of these harebrained schemes must be being created by people who want solar to fail so that they can point at the failure when the dumb idea doesn’t work.
I could see this working for either running cooling and such for refrigerated cargo or if they stick a battery in the trailer. In the latter case it would be possible to just charge it for free while the trailer sits in a lot somewhere. Then when the truck comes they plug in the battery and use the stored up power.
I’m guessing it won’t be driving to Lapland this winter.
Solar is not that efficient. They will gain a extra mile. Whoop Dee doo.
Solar is getting more efficient by the week. It’ll always be a marginal gain but it’s still a gain. An applications engineer somewhere is likely doing the cost benefit analysis to determine the cost per panel to km of drivable energy produced to determine the x number of year return on the panels. If you assume the lifespan of a commercial long haul truck is about 20 years it could add up to a decent amount of energy savings and the panels would still retain some salvage value after that lifespan.
I love your optimism, bit that’s not how any of this works.
It will never be more efficient to put panels on the vehicle. Any vehicle ever. Dirt, trees, buildings, bridges, tunnels, etc. All block light. And panels available today, are around 23% efficiency. And they only get worse over time, estimated a 90% lots at 20 years.
Could they make better panels someday, sure. Would it still make more sense to put those panels on top of buildings or an open areas where they can get lots of sun. Yes.
The issue is that while it may be a trivial gain, that same photovoltaic material would generate more energy in a fixed installation. Also, as an installation on a truck, the weight of the system contributes to the energy needed to move the truck, somewhat negating the benefit.
So sure, have your electric truck. The trickle charging of any onboard solar system wouldn’t even be noticeable though, and it’s better to have the panels on grid helping drive the charging infrastructure. I saw someone guesstimate a theoretical peak of 25kw. My car charges at home at half of that, and even for my comparatively tiny car, that takes a long time to restore range, compared to it driving down the road. The truck might be able to get an extra 5 miles of range per hour of peak sunlight with 25kw system under realistic conditions, and that same material might be able to extract 40-50% more energy over time in a fixed installation.
I don’t know why you’re behind downvoted. Solar still isn’t great for vehicles. This probably about 7-10 days of travel a year at best.
Seems like there would be better green tech to spend this money on. This seems like a lot of money for not much impact.
Might be enough to run the compressor if it’s a reefer.
Not nearly.
874sq-ft is needed for 15kw a trailer is 450. A reefer is around 15kw and needs to be able to run all day and night some times. Just wouldn’t work at all. Especially if you had to carry around the batteries for night. It would just be way too heavy.
They can gain 50,000k extra a year, but its also a plug on hybrid so don’t know how much is panel vs hybrid.
