Thermal and power consumption model of an electrically refrigerated trailer.

In the face of escalating climate change concerns, there is a need for reducing CO2 emissions in all economic sectors. The transportation sector, particularly freight transportation via trucks and especially refrigerated trailers, is a substantial contributor to these emissions. An energy management system can be used to optimize the energy consumption of electrified refrigerated trailers, for which a model of an electrically refrigerated trailer is needed. This paper aims to develop and validate a thermal model of an electrified trailer. The model is created using over 40 h of test drives across a broad spectrum of internal temperatures, which range between -23 ◦C and +18 ◦C, as well as ambient temperatures, which range between 1 ◦C and 36 ◦C. The data was collected from test drives conducted in Spain, Sweden, and Germany under varying temperature set-points and loads, ensuring the model’s accuracy across diverse operating conditions. Additionally, for the first time, the Trailer Refrigeration Unit’s (TRU) electric consumption is modeled in detail over complete drive cycles. The paper also outlines a method for identifying the parameters of the trailer and goods across all runs. This comprehensive approach ensures a robust and accurate model, with an RMSE of below 0.7 ◦C for the open-loop temperature modeling and a total error of below 1.5% for the energy consumption in a closed-loop simulation.