Commercial vehicles must nowadays comply with increasingly strict environmental regulations. One example is refrigerated vehicles, which may only deliver goods if their cooling units operate silently, instead of being supplied with energy by a noisy diesel generator.
As part of a forward-thinking European project, the globally operating commercial vehicle supplier SAFHOLLAND S.A. has integrated a high-performance battery system from AKASOL into an experimental vehicle with the electrified SAF TRAKr trailer axle. The Li-ion batteries are fed with braking energy through the truck‘s journey.
The Li-ion battery system from AKASOL, which SAF-HOLLAND selected for the project – an experimental cooling trailer with electrified SAF TRAKr trailer axle –, is based on the robust, established AKASYSTEM 16 AKM system. It has a capacity of 32.6 kilowatt hours, and its compact dimensions (750 mm x 216 mm x 1546 mm) make it perfectly suited to a cooling trailer. Due to its innovative liquid cooling, the stated life expectancy of the battery system is significantly higher than that of comparable solutions available on the market.
The electrified SAF TRAKr trailer axle transforms the kinetic energy, created by the vehicle braking, into electric energy through an electric motor, which works as a generator (a process called recuperation). Then the power electronics convert this into direct current power, which is stored in the battery. The lifetime of the cooling unit’s diesel generator can be lengthened through the efficient use of the electric motor and battery system.
„For us, as one of the leading producers of commercial vehicle battery systems, the globally operating specialist SAF-HOLLAND is naturally a client of great strategic importance,“ says Sabine Neff, Key Account Manager at AKASOL AG. „The market for electrified trailer axles and recuperation batteries for refrigerated semitrailers , and also for other use cases, is large.“
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