General Discussion

although I did think about a umbilical connection to the cab to run the extensive amount of power for the live aboard cabs when the engine is turned off. The other problem is that I wasn't going to disconnect the diesel generator portion of the refrigeration system, just connect my solar system to the shore power connection for the trailer. Meaning that there is no battery or energy storage system. Usually truckers prefer to drive during the day and park at night (depending if they are driving into side streets of a city or passing through during rush hours).

But sure... add extra utility for such a system might be a good idea.

I once did the math on the number of active refer trailers in the USA... and the amount of diesel they consume, and the cost of the fuel is really eye-popping.

Don't have the numbers handy but the amount of savings to the economy was rather substantial.

When I was at NASA in the 1990s, we put an entire semi truck and trailer into our giant wind tunnel and some guy at NASA had invented these over the cab cowlings or fairings that created better laminar wind flow over the truck. We tested a number of designs with various results... and found we could save about 6% to 8% of the fuel costs for the fleet of tractor trailers in the USA. Published it... and next thing you know, almost every rig in the nation has them. That one invention alone pays for the entire NASA budget every year with industry fuel savings. Not to mention cheaper food and goods for everyone to buy.

Fluid Dynamics!

Or as we used to say "Rocket Science is easy... Computational Fluid Dynamics is really hard!"