Swedish manufacturer Scania has developed a haulage trailer fitted with solar panels which could decarbonise existing trucks.
ADVERTISEMENTTransport in Europe accounts for around 25 per cent of the continent's carbon emissions. A significant proportion of that comes from heavy-duty haulage vehicles.
Goods transportation isn’t something we can live without - unless we want empty shops and supermarkets. But how can we reduce the environmental impact of haulage?
Euronews Green spoke to Swedish vehicle manufacturer Scania to find out more about its quest to solve this problem.
Decarbonising the rolling-fleet
A truck produced right now is expected to last for around 15 - 20 years which means there are lots of pretty old trucks driving around Europe.
It’d be practically impossible and impractical for a variety of reasons to take all the old vehicles off the road and replace them with the newest and most efficient trucks.
“We're exploring all sorts of options and looking at solar powered trucks was one of those options,” Eric Falkgrim, technology leader for vehicle design at Scania, tells Euronews.
“And for me personally, it was more thinking about the battery electric trucks that we have right now. Ten to 15 years ago they were too expensive but with increased energy density and lower costs, all of a sudden it became interesting.
“And so the thought was similar with solar power - that if the efficiency increases and the costs keep decreasing, at some point it'll be worth it. And that's what we're trying to explore.”
How does a solar hybrid truck work?
A truck has two parts - the front ‘tractor’ and the back ‘trailer’. What Scania, in partnership with Uppsala University, has developed is a trailer covered in solar panels.
The advantage is that it can be connected to a hybrid tractor and can act like an extra battery. It can store around 200 kilowatt hours of energy storage, roughly three times as much as the tractor.
“In addition to that, you can also get dynamic charging - well, if the sun is out - and so you're actually charging while you're driving, which is a big upside to having the panels on the truck, rather than on the side of the road,” Eric explains.
What Eric’s team at Scania are still trying to perfect - but will make the trailer particularly unique - is trying to make the solar-panel-covered trailer essentially act as an independently powered electric vehicle. This would mean it could be attached to an old combustion tractor as well as a modern hybrid one.
The preliminary data from testing a solar trailer with a combustion engine suggests it could reduce fuel consumption by around 40 per cent.
When will we see solar hybrid trucks on the road?
The solar hybrid trucks are currently being tested on the roads in Sweden - and will continue throughout 2024.
It might seem like a strange choice to test a solar powered product in a country which gets very little sun in winter but Eric explains that “the thinking was that if it does work here in Sweden, it'll work everywhere.”
“And, you know, if you go to Spain or Australia or somewhere else where it's a lot sunnier, then obviously you'll get a lot more benefits from the truck itself.”
One of the key challenges in this process, according to Eric, has been sourcing suitable solar panels.
“Most panels are made for houses, right? So they're built to be placed on static houses,” he explains.
ADVERTISEMENT“In the automotive sector, we have the issue that it's exposed to dirt, grime, even branches sort of leaning over the roads and scraping the sides.”
There’s the vibration created as the trucks rumble along roads too, Eric says.
“So the panels themselves, the ones that we've used are actually very lightweight and very tough, very durable.
“But in addition to that, you also need to have some safety features that, in case of an accident, won't short circuit the panels so emergency services aren't exposed to high voltages.”
“I think those things need to be taken care of for a scale up of this type of technology.”
ADVERTISEMENTWatch the video above to learn more about the world’s first solar hybrid truck.
