Solar advice needed

[Green Burger]

Hi
I'm a chef and looking to build a green powered food truck. I need to create, capture and store enough energy to supply about 4000 watts of power.
I understand I will need batteries and an inverter. My truck is only so big.

Is it possible to create this kind of power? If so, how many panels would I need?

Any help or advice would be a great help.

Cheers,


GB

[Ralph Day]

Probably more panels than you have surface area on the truck. Plan on having the batteries and inverter cover the loads by plug in charging when not in use.

Ralph

[Martin Gray]

I hope it's a diesel truck you have. So you can run the engine on your waste fryer oil!

I've been running my work truck on vegi oil for over 5 years now. 50,000 km per year!

Good luck, Martin.

[Joe Blake]

Are you going to be actually cooking in the truck itself, or is the truck just for transport to kitchens?

Joe

[Krista Hiles]

I appreciate your concern towards environment. By relying on such resources we can reduce the carbon emissions up to a great extent.

[Rob Beckers]

GB, to put some rough numbers behind your question: There are two metrics that matter when talking about producing energy/power; How much energy do you need on an average day (that's just like your electrical meter, in kilo-Watt-hours), and how much power do you need at any given moment (that's like a light bulb, in Watt or kilo-Watt).

For your location 1 kilo-Watt (kW) of solar panels mounted on the roof of a truck (flat, 0 degrees pitch) will roughly produce 0.52 kWh of energy per average day in the middle of December, and 3.1 kWh of energy on an average day in June. These are averages. Of course each day will be different, and there can be multiple consecutive days of bad weather with near zero output. These numbers are for an off-grid system, with batteries and an inverter.

Each panel measures 5.4' x 3.3', and 1 kW is 4 panels, or 10.8' x 6.6' in size on the roof.

Now, how much would you need to power a load of 4 kW (4000 Watt) for, say, 6 hours a day? 4 kW is power, to calculate energy that needs to be multiplied by the duration, so 4 kW x 6 h = 24 kWh of energy needed on an average day.

Let's say you roll the truck from mid-May through mid-September, that means the worst solar yield is 2.0 kWh per average day per kW of PV (in September). You would need 24 / 2 = 12 kW of solar panels to produce that amount of energy on an average day. Or an area on the roof of 10.8' x 39.6' in size.

In short, we're not talking about a "food truck" any more, but more about a "food semi-trailer". Or at least a "food bus", since those exist in 40' sizes.

Besides the roof you would also need a healthy amount of batteries to store energy for those rainy (and cloudy) days, inverters, charge controllers, and various other bits and pieces. Total cost if we did that job would be around $78,000 for the electrical plant.

-RoB-

[Jaden Miller]

You can use multiple solar panels which are long lasting. Its nice that you are concern with environmental benefits by using solar energy.

[Jerry Smith]

You can add panels if they are matched up. Problem is you cannot add batteries. So as you add panels, you will need to replace the battery or batteries as you grow with larger batteries.

[Rob Beckers]

You can add panels if they are matched up. Problem is you cannot add batteries. So as you add panels, you will need to replace the battery or batteries as you grow with larger batteries.

Though you can certainly add panels without changing or adding to the batteries. In fact, if anything it will help keep the battery bank charged better.

-RoB-

[Jaden Miller]

I agree with you adding panels will solve your problem.

[Brian McGowan]

I am going to guess you park and set up for the day and stay stationary for the duration?Put as many panels as you can on your truck and make a setup that allows you to unfold them in a trifold arrangement so you can essentially have 3 times the collection area of your roof. Get a diesel generator and run it on your fryer oil is a very good idea. I run my Mercedes on biodiesel but for any engine that runs for a period of time, straight vegetable oil is a great idea. Combine the two to run your system. A grid tied inverter will allow your panels to provide as much power as they can and allow the generator to take up the remainder. I also took a lawn mower engine and hooked an alternator to it to keep my batteries charged and I have a diesel engine I am going to hook the alternators to. This way you only have to run the engine at the speed required to keep the alternators flowing enough air to stay cool thus saving fuel.