Customer visiting a Humana Mobile Marketing van
Humana strives to meet customers where they are, and the company’s mobile offices offer potential members the opportunity to talk one-on-one with a marketing agent and enroll in a plan by bringing the office to them. Vans are placed in highly visible, high-traffic areas for the day and are equipped with Wi-Fi, televisions, lights, speakers and cameras. In order to generate electricity to the van for the day, the engine would have to be started every 20 minutes to power the battery, and generators would have to be used as an additional charge to the van. The team burned through generators, spending close to $3,500 every three to six months because they were being used constantly. It was becoming both a costly and unsustainable energy source.
That’s when the MarketPoint national vehicle fleet management team started to rethink energy use and decided to take a different approach and determined that they could use solar panels to substitute for the generators. The team educated themselves on solar panel installation, created the plans and started installing panels on the roofs of mobile marketing offices. As a result, it reduced the number of times needed to start the engine to recharge the battery from every 20 minutes to just once or twice in an eight-hour day.
“We can now go a lot longer without having to turn on a regular gasoline engine,” said Kris Crowe, Senior Vehicle Fleet Management Professional. “As a result, we’re reducing pollution and reducing harm to the environment.”
The cost to power the van also went down, with each solar panel only costing about $150-$200. Currently, 70 percent of the mobile office fleet has solar panels installed, with a goal to eventually install solar panels in 100 percent of the fleet. The team continues to learn and tweak solar panel usage plans to harness the most energy possible, and they hope to eventually eliminate the need to run the vans at all during the day.
The team hopes to power the buildings where the fleet of vehicles are stored with solar panel energy one day as well. “There is a future to this,” Crowe said. “It’s a lot brighter and a lot greener."
Mobile office van with solar panel installed on roof