Utopia or reality: affordable and energy-efficient off-road machinery
To overcome the challenges of tight emissions regulation, extensive work is underway to improve off-road machinery. Most of the work concentrates on electrification, as conventional working hydraulic systems suffer from high metering losses that lead to overall system efficiency about of 21%. Utilizing a more-electric architecture brings high energy savings and works with a power-on-demand approach. However, this comes with high investments costs. Is it possible with current technologies and what would be an acceptable payback time? Affordable and energy-efficient off-road machinery: is it utopia or reality? Results of the implementation of completed and ongoing projects will be demonstrated.