Introducing Sunshine Forecast to Improve On-Board Energy Management of Hybrid Solar Vehicles

Management strategies of Hybrid Solar Vehicles differ from Hybrid Electric Vehicles, which usually adopt charge sustaining strategies, because the battery can be recharged also during parking time by solar energy. Therefore, at the end of driving the final state of charge (SOC) is required to be low enough to allow full storage of solar energy captured in the next parking phase, whereas the adoption of an unnecessary constantly-low value of final SOC would give additional energy losses and compromise battery lifetime. The effects of different strategies of selection of final SOC are studied by simulation over hourly solar data at different months, and the benefits achievable by estimating the energy expected in next parking phase are assessed.