Hybrid Solar-Wind Power System for Truck Refrigeration

摘要

The transport of perishable goods like horticultural products and fish has been a major problem due to the lack of refrigeration in transit vehicles resulting in produce going bad thus losses and also leads to reckless over speeding which causes accidents. Those equipped with refrigeration facilities are diesel powered which is not environmentally friendly and is expensive in cost and maintenance. Therefore, a renewable energy powered refrigeration system needs to be installed, which significantly reduces refrigeration costs, and reduces the dependency in fossil fuels reducing carbon emissions. This will be achieved by the use of a hybrid solar-wind energy system to power the refrigerator. The solar photovoltaic array will be mounted on top of the truck whereby an inverter system will be used to convert the DC output to AC. The system will incorporate a charge controller to monitor battery charging and also artificial intelligence technique-perturb and observe to optimize its performance. The wind turbines will be mounted at the truck's wind deflector to harness the wind energy which is further amplified when the vehicle is in motion. The output is integrated with that of the solar PV system, goes through a stabilization circuit then it is used to power up the refrigeration circuit. Excess energy is stored in the batteries to supplement any shortfall. This will reduce transportation costs, losses and accidents.