The Benefits of Solar Power in Trucking

If you own a truck and you or your driver idles your truck to enjoy heating or cooling the cab, and running other accessories, you could be pumping money out the exhaust pipe. Idling a diesel truck engine burns about 0.8 gallons per hour. If the driver runs the engine through a 10-hour break and another 4 hours during loading and unloading in a single day you burn 11.2 gallons of diesel. At 5 days per week, it amounts to 56 gallons and at $4.00 a gallon you spend $224. Over a year you pump $11,648 straight out the exhaust stack, not to mention harming the environment, and giving other people a feeling of contempt over noise and pollution and trucking gets another black eye.

Be careful not to blame your drivers for all that idling if they do not have alternative options. That can cause bad feelings and may result in unnecessary driver turnover.

And all the while you are wearing out and shortening the life of an awfully expensive diesel engine. Can your business really afford that kind of expense? What if you own 10 trucks? That is $116,480 per year and 10 expensive refreshing of engines. Wouldn’t you rather spend much less and feel much better about being in business?

Solar Power Can Help

 But we are not talking about replacing engine power for freight transportation. Diesel still works for now. What we are concerned with is extending the life of your vehicle assets by adapting solar power solutions thereby saving you considerable revenue and keeping your driver or drivers comfortable and happy in their work. After all, idling is noisy and shakes the cab, interfering with their sleep which we know can be dangerous to everyone on the road.

The North American Council for Freight Efficiency states that the right solar equipment can pay for itself in about 3 years’ time.