Investigation of cabin heating in electric vehicles with integrating solar cells and heat storage systems

Abstract

In recent years, the production and usage of electric vehicles have been encouraged due to zero emissions, efficiency, and economic factors. Efficient cabin heating and thermal management in electric vehicles are crucial for enhancing passenger comfort, extending battery life, and optimizing overall energy usage, thus contributing to the sustainability and practicality of electric transportation. Heating the cabin of electric vehicles in winter has a negative effect on range. Therefore, methods are being researched to use energy efficiently without sacrificing passenger comfort and minimizing the effect on the vehicle's range. This study presents an innovative radiator design specifically crafted for Electric Vehicles (EVs), leveraging solar panels to heat water for the radiator. This system enables the vehicle to harness solar energy for heating a water tank while stationary, effectively serving as an energy storage reservoir. Upon vehicle movement, the radiator system activates to disperse the stored thermal energy throughout the cabin, ensuring superior thermal comfort. Consequently, optimizing battery range is achieved as the heating load typically leads to significant range reductions. From the obtained results in experiment 2, the results indicated that the cabin temperature rose from 3 °C to around 15 °C within a few minutes, reflecting an increase of approximately 12 °C. According to the results, this indicates that there will be a reduction in energy consumption of between 1.9 % and 3 % for a one-hour travel range in this electric vehicle. The findings of this investigation demonstrate that utilizing warm water energy storage effectively enhances cabin thermal management.