Family-owned transport giant Wickham Freight Lines has this week taken delivery of what it says is Australia’s first fully battery-electric, solar-charged refrigerated trailer unit.
Wickham , one of Australia’s largest privately owned transport companies, says traditional truck refrigeration systems are powered by either the truck’s main engine or a dedicated diesel generator, but the Sunswap Endurance system is fully electric and powered by a battery that is in turn charged by solar panels when on the road and plugged-in charging between runs.
The Sunswap system is developed by British manufacturer Sunswap and distributed in Australia by Protran, and is billed as being capable of generating 80 per cent of the refrigeration system’s power requirements each year, extending the range and reducing grid dependency.
Sunswap also claims that, from a single charge on the battery, Endurance can maintain refrigeration temperatures for over 24 hours when frozen, over 2 days for multi-temperature requirements, and up to 2 months chilled.
It says Sunswap Endurance is capable of reducing operating costs by up to 81 per cent and total cost of ownership by up to 43 per cent when compared to diesel.
Wickham Freight Lines decided to purchase the Sunswap Endurance unit following a trial run from Sydney to Brisbane and back, which covered a total of 1,671 kilometres across 32 hours and finished the journey with 67 per cent of the battery’s charge remaining.
“I put the Sunswap Endurance into the fleet and told the team to stretch it — treat it as a normal unit,” said Graham Keogh, director at Wickham Freight Lines.
“We were genuinely impressed. I’m a true believer. I love the technology and I’m not a true tech person whatsoever. You can just see that it’s a winner.
“The performance, reliability and operational savings were beyond what we expected. For a business like ours, running a large fleet across the east coast, with a heavy focus on refrigerated and cold chain freight, this technology makes real commercial sense.
“We’re proud to be the first in Australia to commit to it, and we see this as the beginning of a broader shift in how we power our fleet.”
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