Commercial Vehicles
A refrigerated or frozen food semi trailer or train car may be equipped with an independent APU and fuel tank to maintain low temperatures while in transit, without the need for an external transport-supplied power source.
In the United States, federal Department of Transportation regulations require 10 hours of rest for every 11 hours of driving. When stopped, drivers often idle their engines to provide heat, light, and power. Idling inefficiently burns fuel and puts wear on engines. Some trucks carry an APU designed to eliminate these long idles. An APU can save up to 20 gallons (Cat 600 – 10 hours downtime @ 2 gallons per hour idling) (≈ 76 litres) of fuel a day, and can extend the useful life of the main engine by around 100,000 miles (≈ 160,000 kilometres), by reducing non-productive run time.
On some older diesel engines, an APU was used instead of an electric motor to start the main engine. These were primarily used on large pieces of construction equipment.
Read more about this topic: Auxiliary Power Unit
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