India’s advanced battery management and intelligence systems provider ION Energy has announced a strategic collaboration with Polish Wamtechnik, a leader of battery manufacture in Europe. The collaboration is said to help in Wamtechnik facilitate the deployment of a prototype for an all-electric excavator which would be for an unnamed European construction equipment manufacturing.
Wamtechnik is a 28-year-old company that is a leader in power supply systems. Wamtechnik designs, and produces dedicated rechargeable and non-rechargeable battery packs for industrial applications. This electric excavator will be designed for construction equipment and worksite technology builder who has not been named. Wamtechnik’s customer is said to be a company that produces a wide range of construction equipment that includes wheel-loaders, excavators, ground compacting equipment, etc.
The brief requires the design and deployment of a range of compact electric construction equipment. These machines must be able to operate in subzero temperatures (-20-degrees Celcius). Wemtachnik will license ION Energy’s BMS technology platform to enable it.
ION Energy’s technology has used a 48V, 456Ah battery pack that would be the primary source of power often excavator. The battery pack is made up of 10 parallel modules of a 14S16P cell configuration to achieve the energy capacity required. ION will help to identify a smart battery management system provider who would enable a highly scalable and reliable Master-Slave architecture for batteries manufactured by Wamtechnik.
To counteract the accelerated battery life degradation in sub-zero temperatures, ION developed and implemented the control of Wamtechnik thermal management system that can safely manage the operation of a li-ion battery at harsh cold temperatures where the excavator is expected to function. The system powers up heaters using onboard chargers to bring the batteries into optimum temperature before its activation.
Filip Gabryelewicz, Product Manager at Wamtechnik said, “ION has massively assisted our customer to overcome their critical challenge of operating the battery under extreme temperatures. The support and guidance that ION’s team offered to us and our customers throughout the project was invaluable. We have been able to significantly boost our business profitability and are confident about working with more customers to solve pressing battery management problems!”
Akhil Aryan, Co-founder & CEO of ION Energy said, “This collaboration with Wamtechnik has been instrumental in realizing ION’s long term growth and expansion targets and also in ushering emission-free and sustainable electrified automation. The project is furthering ION’s mission of accelerating the Earth’s transition to an all-electric planet. The strategic alliance will go a long way in transforming the power supply and construction equipment ecosystem. It will revolutionize and redefine hitherto smoke-producing, manual, and inefficient processes. This convergence of ideal business innovators and pioneering technologies is vital for achieving a global sustainable industrial model that utilises scientific advancement and knowhow to sublimate the impending disasters posed by the deadly climate change and the continual distress primarily induced by ICEs.”
ION has ensured a minimum business of $1 million for the partner in 2020 and is expected to increase by up to $15 million in the upcoming years.
In this development process, ION implemented the daisy chain formation method on the existing FS-LT BMS which was followed by a transition to the FS-XT BMS, designed for High Voltage battery systems that better suit the need. Wamtechnik also used ION’s AI-powered battery intelligence platform – Edison Analytics to visualize, predict and interpret battery data to improve battery life and manage their fleet.