How much does a photovoltaic refrigeration container cost

The photovoltaic energy cost price is estimated at about 5 cents per kWh over the lifetime of the plant, compared to an average energy cost of between 11 and 17 cents per kWh today for a business, depending on its level of annual consumption from its supplier.

Good question, let's work it out. Energy consumption for a refrigerated container depends on a bunch of different factors (set-point temperature for the cooled space, ambient conditions, system efficiency, etc.), but the “Container Handbook” suggests an average value of 3,600 W per TEU which sounds good to me.

Reefers have enabled a global supply chain of perishable goods, but it comes at a high-energy cost. A solar reefer could help reduce this cost, but with current technology it won't eliminate it. As solar panel performance and strength improves it's worth revisiting. Soon a solar reefer may shift from a mere novelty to a new standard.

Since it's impossible for the sun to hit every side of a container at once, powering an average reefer entirely by solar is just not possible. Unless we change the energy consumption of the system that is. Since there is no sense in covering the entire reefer in solar, let's consider just using the top.

So on average the solar array on this hypothetical reefer would need to output 8.6 kWh, but we'll add a 15% buffer on top of that to account for system losses, which brings us to about 10 kWh as the needed output for the array. Lets say we use this LG solar panel rated for 300 W, then that would mean we need 34 panels.

Things aren't all doom and gloom for solar reefer adoption. Reefer containers use the most energy when they are baking in the sun – which is exactly when solar panels perform best.