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Solar panels in gasoline car

pmfman

We all know that an alternator in a car uses a significant portion of a car's HP, thus lots of its fuel efficiency. Thus in theory, if a large enough solar panel (lets say 150 watts) wouldn't this decrease the load on the alternator this increasing HP/fuel efficiency?

 

This is more or less to satisfy curiosity, I don't intend to try it.

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  • So essentially it isnt practical on a car unless the size of solar panels reduces or unless the entire horizontal surface of the car is solar panels

  • in reply to pmfman

    Standard Poly/Mono crystalline PV panels costs about 0,5 €/Wp. From 1 m2 you can get about 140 - 160 Wp. But those framed PV panels are not good choice.

    Better is use flexible panels, but they cost about 1,5 to 2 €/Wp. Efficiency is similar -  140 to 160 Wp/m2. You could easily up to 2 m2 on car roof - about 300 Wp on roof. This give you somewhere about 450 to 600 € per roof with flexible PV panel.

    But than you need another components (cables, charger, some control and safe devices, ...), and easily you are in 1 000 € price level. This give you about 700 l of petrol - and this is (with 7 l/100 km) about 10 000 km of full consumption.

    But with saved consumption on alternator (let say up to 10 %) is 100 000 km return of investment. And this is not covering any necessities of alternator disconnection improvement.

    Result - only with saved fuel make no sense to do it. But with other attributes to consider - learning something new, saving environment, curiosity, ... it is interesting experiment.

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  • in reply to pmfman

    Standard Poly/Mono crystalline PV panels costs about 0,5 €/Wp. From 1 m2 you can get about 140 - 160 Wp. But those framed PV panels are not good choice.

    Better is use flexible panels, but they cost about 1,5 to 2 €/Wp. Efficiency is similar -  140 to 160 Wp/m2. You could easily up to 2 m2 on car roof - about 300 Wp on roof. This give you somewhere about 450 to 600 € per roof with flexible PV panel.

    But than you need another components (cables, charger, some control and safe devices, ...), and easily you are in 1 000 € price level. This give you about 700 l of petrol - and this is (with 7 l/100 km) about 10 000 km of full consumption.

    But with saved consumption on alternator (let say up to 10 %) is 100 000 km return of investment. And this is not covering any necessities of alternator disconnection improvement.

    Result - only with saved fuel make no sense to do it. But with other attributes to consider - learning something new, saving environment, curiosity, ... it is interesting experiment.

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