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I can't find it anymore but some guy did some really awsome fan fiction about the backpack, I think he called it the covenant system. It integrated the back pack with a inventory system so that if you were running out of ammo, you could get it from a downed marine that was nearby. He had CAD images and everything. Wish I could find it.

Here's this too. Not as good as the old RT era pic though

The "seats" in both the rhino and Land Raider also include charging units that link up to a non-pack wearing marine (the shape of the charging jacks matches the sockets on the marine rear torsos).

It is entirely possible to keep the suits powered from the vehicle's own power supply.

The backpack is a fusion reactor that, in the event of failure, has a solar power system set up to keep power going into the suit. Vehicles provide the power to drivers/turret operators and bikes probably do the same, unless static power from the wheels powers the armor. XD

I kind of think that the solar panels are a supporting element rather than a reserve system. Even with technobabble sci-fi I have a hard time believing that the amount of energy picked up this way would suffice to keep the armour running. However, perhaps solar energy is used to kick off the reactor, assuming it is shut down whenever not in use? This way you could bring its systems up and running from zero power consumption to 100% just by flicking a switch in a lighted hallway, rather than having to rely on batteries (which degrade over time, iirc).

RegalPhantom wrote:
I believe the back-pack is mainly used as a power supply for the Marines armor. I believe the reason that vehicle and turret mounted marines do not wear them is because they get the power for their armor directly from the vehicle/turret they are deployed with.

This is the correct answer.

 Lynata wrote:
I kind of think that the solar panels are a supporting element rather than a reserve system. Even with technobabble sci-fi I have a hard time believing that the amount of energy picked up this way would suffice to keep the armour running. However, perhaps solar energy is used to kick off the reactor, assuming it is shut down whenever not in use? This way you could bring its systems up and running from zero power consumption to 100% just by flicking a switch in a lighted hallway, rather than having to rely on batteries (which degrade over time, iirc).

I got my info from the main wiki, which can be coraborated with the books. Perhaps you're right, but solar panels with "100 batteries" could keep the suit running just enough a Marine could get to a Chaplain or a tech marine to get the reactor back up. Who knows, it's 40k.