Battery charging technology at the highest level

Fronius, the Austrian know-how leader in charging traction batteries for electrically powered forklift trucks, will be exhibiting its unrivalled charging technology, its holistic system solutions and its pioneering technical approach to energy storage at LogiMAT 2015.

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The unique charging technology based on the innovative Ri charging process from Fronius made its trade fair debut at LogiMAT 2013. Since then, many well-known companies have opted for this new technology - with great success, as the last couple of years have impressively shown. Users now include car manufacturers and their suppliers as well as food manufacturers and logistics companies.

The “secret” of this ground-breaking technology is its completely new technical approach: Instead of forcing a process with fixed charging characteristics on the battery without taking account of the actual condition of the battery, as is currently the case, the current charge level is measured constantly once the charging plug is connected to the battery. Using this information from the battery, the individual charging phases - in other words, the optimum power requirement of the battery - are adjusted as required. Every single charging cycle is thus unique. This considerably extends the life of the battery and provides for maximum energy efficiency.

Fronius has long failed to be content with merely the development and supply of battery charging systems. Thus the battery charging specialist has extended the range of products and services it offers to include complete charging systems. When developing systems, Fronius has years of expertise and experience from countless customer projects to draw on. Fronius is the sole contact for the customer - from analysing the current situation through planning and installation to operating the complete turnkey charging system. If required, Fronius takes on the operation of small and large battery charging installations for a defined period - including the maintenance of batteries and battery charging systems, safety inspections, evaluation of application errors and provision of training as well as ongoing analysis of costs and rising safety requirements.

It is well known that batteries heat up during charging. However, the cooler a battery is before being used again in a forklift truck, the longer its life. To enable the truck driver to identify which battery has been cooling down the longest after charging, without lengthy searches in the charging station or battery charging room, Fronius shows on the LogiMAT two visualisation systems: the “Cool Battery Guide Easy and the “Cool Battery Guide Premium”.

The current development work of Fronius is as forward-looking as the Austrian's products and systems for charging the traction batteries in electric forklift trucks. Key among this pioneering research are alternative power and energy storage systems, such as fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries.