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La Croisière Verte is the name of a 13,500 km expedition, from the north to south.of Africa, in fleet of four Citroën AMI vehicles, each carrying 5,600 W of lightweight PV panels in foldable packs.
A fleet of four Citroën AMI vehicles, which are classed as electric quadricycles, will soon be departing on a journey called La Croisière Verte. It is a 13,500 km expedition from the north to the south of the African continent to show the potential of compact lightweight electric vehicles. Each will carry 5,600 W of solar panels to be set up along the way for static charging.
La Croisière Verte was founded by Éric Vigouroux, a French entrepreneur and former Dakkar Rally pilot, who is now focused on sustainable travel. Also on the journey is Dutch engineer Maarten van Pel who recently completed an overland journey circumnavigating Africa in a 4×4 electric Skoda, as reported by pv magazine.
The team will depart in October, one hundred years after historical African continental expeditions that also featured Citroën vehicles. It will travel from Paris to Marseille and then across Morocco, heading south: destination Capetown, South Africa. “Our idea is that adventure can be sustainable and fun, even with a compact light electric vehicle,” van Pel told pv magazine.
The plan is to drive at an average speed of 45 km/h, covering 200 km per day in two shifts, one starting early mornings and the other starting late afternoons with battery charging sessions during peak sunlight hours.
“The Citroen AMI fleet will be equipped with a solar panel on the roof but static charging is the primary source of energy,” explained van Pel. Each Citroen AMI will carry 5,600 W of solar panels in portable multi-panel packs that unfold as mounting racks.
“All the panels combined generate 22 kW of PV capacity,” said van Pel. They are custom-designed, lightweight ultra-thin modules made with monocrystalline interdigitated back-contact technology from Singapore-based Maxeon. They were developed along with the PV system by Dutch specialist PV module manufacturer Mito Solar.
The racks are made of fiberglass-coated PET foam. The angle is adjustable to accommodate the position of the sun due to seasonal and latitude changes. “We will be departing in autumn and arriving in summer in the southern African countries,” noted van Pel.
A simple MPPT using off-the-shelf equipment is all that was needed for the inverter functionality. The 48 V battery charging electronics are typical of a very small PV system that integrates higher voltage capacity, according to van Pel.
The Citroën AMI vehicles were modified for the journey. Besides the solar PV integrated roof, the standard 6 kWh battery was replaced with a bigger set of batteries to extend the range from 70 km to 250 km. Furthermore, drum motors for each of the rear wheels were added, and the chassis was doubled in height for extra ground clearance. |
