News - Component Test

Energy-saving Battery Testing

28 February 2013 - The Energy-Pump-Charging-Discharging technology (EPCD) is a concept developed by FuelCon for minimizing the energy consumption in battery test fields. The TrueData-EPCD combines all functionalities and applications of a charge/ discharge unit for single cell testing with the innovative EPCD concept for resource-friendly operation of battery test fields enabling enormous energy cost savings with reduction of the test station operating costs up to 70 %.

The EPCD technology takes advantage from the fact that in typical, multi-channel test field operation, charge and discharge cycles are performed at the same time. Realized by an innovative intermediate circuit, the energy of channels in discharge mode will be transferred to channels in charge mode, generating continuous energy exchange between the channels.

This solution’s benefits are obvious: minimized energy consumption without any additional investment costs in air- or water-cooling system infrastructures. And last but not least: optimum utilization of cost-intensive, scarce laboratory resources.

TrueData-EPCD is available in different customized versions with up to 40 A per channel and 8 channels per rack. The state-of-the-art system architecture combines the energy-saving and environment-friendly technology with a high-precision, dynamic measuring system that additionally features outstanding accuracy and high resolution.

Applying the EPCD technology allows an extremely compact test field design of several hundred channels. Parallel switching of channels makes charge and discharge cycles of up to 320 A possible. Several options like test shelves or closed test chambers are available.

The test system enables performance of both, flexible self-defined load cycles as well as standard cycles. A sophisticated alarm concept ensures the test station is in a safe state at any time.

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