How Fleets are Using Solar Power
Canada’s Groupe Robert is using six solar panels and four deep-cycle batteries to keep drivers comfortable and batteries charged. Photo: Groupe Robert
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Canada’s Groupe Robert is using six solar panels and four deep-cycle batteries to keep drivers comfortable and batteries charged. Photo: Groupe Robert
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Royal Jones is always trying something new to improve fuel economy. The president and CEO of Mesilla Valley Transportation is known as an early adopter of technologies from 6×2 drivetrains to trailer aerodynamics — even going so far as to make his own prototypes. That’s what he tried about five years ago with solar power, installing panels on the truck cab to extend the amount of time electric auxiliary power units could operate. The aerodynamic penalty was too great, so he abandoned that particular effort. However, he discovered that the batteries on those trucks were lasting far longer.
Today, newer, thinner, flexible solar panels have solved the aerodynamic problem, so the Texas-based truckload fleet now has several hundred of its Navistar trucks running with eNow’s auxiliary solar system. This has resulted in less idling, longer battery and alternator life, and increased driver satisfaction.
And that’s not the only way fleets are using the power of the sun to save money on fuel, improve driver comfort, reduce maintenance costs, and improve uptime.
Driver comfort
“The big savings for me is getting more hours on your APU,” Jones says, as the solar panels provide four to six more hours of cooling time. “It’s hard to figure the ROI, because it’s not an exact science. But if you save two jump-starts a year, that’s $600. If your driver comfort is better, how do you put a price on that? And we used to replace all eight batteries every year, but the trucks with the solar panels have had them for four years.”
Another proponent of solar panels for trucks is Montreal-based Groupe Robert, one of Canada’s largest trucking companies. Solar panels help it keep drivers comfortable without idling, …Read the rest of this story
