I'd like to see the financials for this from a haulage operators perspective; payback period, return on investment etc
Also would be cool to see the sums if solar panels were added to the equation
Also would be cool to see the sums if solar panels were added to the equation
So this is definitely not enough to power the vehicle going down the road, but it is enough to add significantly to its range. Again, assuming the truck is driving down the road at high noon during the summer and there are no clouds.
PV doesn't work for cars because they don't have enough surface area, but it is a reasonable idea for a semi trailer.
That would mean a power use of around a 100kwh while driving 60 mph.
That would extend the range by about 10% that's less then I would have expected, but still could make sense depending on the standing time.
It might mean the cabin AC can run when its parked, and keep things humane. It might supplement a refrigerated intermodal and prevent engine run-on so be good for noise.
I doubt it would extend range much.
Happy to be proved wrong. E.g. the entire truck-top surface area with an integrated trailer might be enough to make sufficient KW to be worth doing.
I suspect adding PV panels would have another issue, however, which is they’re frequently stacked on top of one another in shipping yards, etc. PV paneled trailers would likely not be stackable, and therefore containers would need to be repackaged for storage or transport outside trucking (IE a container ship wouldn’t be able to just drop a container on to a truck to ferry it, it’d need to be reloaded).