Integration of PV systems on health emergency vehicles. The FIVE project

The main purpose of this paper is to present the FIVE Project (Fotovoltaico Integrado en Vehículos de Emergencias) which involves the integration of a photovoltaic system in a health emergency vehicle. Here, the use of photovoltaic technology is extended to improving the performance of these kinds of vehicles. The fact is that their batteries usually deteriorate prematurely, owing to the high electrical consumption of the medical equipment they have to support, together with the short periods of time that their engines remain running. A consequence of such problems is high maintenance costs due to the frequent changes of batteries, and what is more important, occasional difficulties in starting the vehicle at critical moments. Furthermore, the service battery of the health emergency vehicle has to be charged every day by a battery charger connected to the grid, providing this kind of vehicle a poor autonomy level. In order to solve these problems, the main purpose of this project was to design, implement and evaluate the performance and utility of a health emergency vehicle prototype with an integrated PV generator. The data collected from the prototype evaluation tests have shown that the incorporation of the PV generator solves the problems mentioned above. Besides, the relative cost of the PV generator compared with the high cost of health emergency vehicles can be considered negligible. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.