Sweden’s Scania
Late last week, Sweden’s Scania revealed a world-first mongrel semi-truck covered in solar panels. Because of its tone-produced energy, the unique prototype has the implicit to reduce both functional costs and CO2 emigrations of heavy transport.
The mongrel truck’s caravan is covered in 100 square meters of solar panels that are plugged into an electrical system carried on board. It’s being stationed in an exploration design to examine how important solar energy such a configuration can induce, and how important it’s possible to lower CO2 emigrations through the use of the attached photovoltaic panels.
As it swooshes quietly down the Scandinavian country roads, it looks like a commodity of a transplant from a not-not-so-distant future. But, solar-powered exchanges and Sweden?
still, you can make it work anywhere, ” said Eric Falkgrim, “ If you can make it work then with solar power in Sweden. Falkgrim added that if the technology is feasible in the Nordics, also that would confirm the wide validity of the design.
Inspired by the progress made in lithium-ion battery tech, many times back the company’s exploration and invention department asked itself if solar panel technology could also grow both more effective and come down in cost enough for a tone-feeding photovoltaic truck to make sense.
Following an original study concluded in 2019 to determine feasibility, Scania entered backing from the Swedish state invention agency Vinnova. It also launched a full-scale design in January 2021, with effective and lightweight solar cells developed by Uppsala University.
“ This is an instigative design where academia and assiduity together try to drop the climate impact from truck transports. The results from this unique truck will be veritably intriguing, ”
said Erik Johansson, design director and Professor of physical chemistry.
Solar tech
The draw-in mongrel truck/ tractor has all the “ regular systems ” — including a 100 kWh energy storehouse. Meanwhile, the caravan has a fresh energy storehouse capacity of 200kWh, performing as a “ power bank ” charged by the solar panels. But naturally, dressing a caravan in photovoltaics has a specific set of engineering challenges.
“ You have to bear in mind that solar cells aren’t made to be moving around the city in a vehicle. They’re designed to sit stationary on top of a house for 20 or 30 times. We’ve had to address safety challenges in putting solar panels on a vehicle, ”
Falkgrim added.
still, he also noted that it was still an exploration design, and would allow for the possibility of specialized snags demanding to be fixed along the way.
“ It’s fairly involved from a specialized point of view, but we don’t have that pressure of it being a full-scale design where we’re producing a commodity that will be vented encyclopedically to hundreds and thousands of guests. It’s an exploration design that’s about seeing if the result makes sense, and so far we believe it does. ”
To hear further about what the experience has been like for Scania masterminds working on the design, and see further images of the truck rolling once red little houses and fields, you can check out the videotape below
