British farmer develops a fleet of solar powered ice cream vans

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We’re always happy to hear of different industries going more “green” as they look to minimise any environmental impact related to their work, but we must admit, our favourite solar-related story of recent times is one we recently heard about the man who is helping to turn ice cream vans solar powered!

The man in question is a farmer, David Baker of Styles Farm near Minehead to be specific. He came up with the idea for using solar power to run his ice cream vans after customers at some of the events they catered to were worried about the diesel fumes coming from their existing vans.


The solar panels that he has added to the vans are able to power the freezers, the ice-cream makers and the van’s coffee machine. David Baker’s ice cream company are present at over 160 shows across the five months of an average year, with the new solar-powered vans able to produce up to 500 ice creams an hour, matching the output of a traditional ice cream van. A prototype van ran for four days on solar at Glastonbury Festival.

Commenting on the process, David Baker said "We had to rebuild from scratch. You have the solar panels on the top then a big bank of batteries inside. Electric vans aren't ready yet. As soon as they are, this is designed so the equipment can go straight on to an electric van. This year, we might be able to do the whole of Glastonbury and not have to have any power. In the past, the diesel engines would use £4,000 of diesel a year and we will be able to save all that fuel by this system. On a nice day we are generating 2.4 kilowatts so we're matching what we're using. Often we come back from shows with full batteries."


It remains to be seen how many other ice cream companies will take similar steps to reduce the environmental impact of their vans, but we have to give credit to Baker and the steps he has taken.

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