Ultracapacitors Give Lift to Material Handling

Focus:

Battery-powered electric forklifts are used in large refrigerated warehouses. In these sub-freezing environments, traditional batteries have a lower than normal terminal voltage, which reduces the forklift battery's power output and requires that forklift users stop to change the batteries at least once during a normal eight-hour shift. Ultracapacitors (also known as EDLCs) can help by providing energy storage to support the batteries in lifting heavy loads which can be up to 700 A. Ultracaps even enable forklifts to deliver full power output at temperatures as low as 40 degrees below zero. In this article, the author discusses the benefits of deploying ultracapacitors in forklifts. Requirements for control and charging electronics are briefly discussed. Measurements of battery current in an actual forklift application demonstrate the impact of ultracaps in reducing peak current drawn from the battery.

What you’ll learn:

• How to understand the benefits of using ultracapacitors to support batteries in electric forklifts

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Author & Publication:

Chad Hall, Ioxus, Oneonta, NY, How2Power Today, Oct 22 2009

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