During 2022, the IKEA store in the Dutch city of Delft ran a pilot project focusing on delivering goods sustainably from the store to people’s homes. The store experimented with a solar-powered cargo bike within the city centre area, focusing on the area around the store's location. The cargo bike, called SunRider, uses solar panels built into the cargo box. These provide up to 100% solar energy to charge the bike, effectively reducing CO2 emissions significantly compared to conventional e-cargo bikes.

Helene Davidsson, sustainability manager at IKEA Systems B.V. said: “This SunRider bike can accommodate roughly 90% of the IKEA product range and emits 98% less CO2 than modern diesel vans. For IKEA, it’s important to explore new ways to improve the service offer for the customers, both from a more sustainable, affordable, and accessible perspective. The solar-powered cargo bike does all that.”

The evaluation of the pilot solar-powered cargo bike showed that the project was a success. Consequently, IKEA Systems B.V. is scaling up the use of the solar-powered cargo bike giving all IKEA retailers world-wide the option to extend their home delivery fleet with a solar-powered cargo bike.

Article published first at Power Engineering International on 13 December 2022.

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