Summary:  

MEBREX electric solutions GmbH deals with the reduction of CO2 emissions in various areas in which fuel is used. One area is the CO2 emissions from trucks and how this could be reduced. It describes when unnecessary fuel consumption occurs on the truck, which relationships were determined. Consequently, it is listed how savings in consumption and thus a reduction in CO2 emissions can be achieved with the MEBREX MEC 1.4. At the end you will find information about the management.

 

Reduction of CO2 emissions due to lower HGV engine idling.

 

How can the idling time of HGVs be reduced? Why is there a time when the HGV engine is idling? The reasons as well as the potential for reduction are presented on the following pages.

 

Engine idling can happen:

 

 

At MEBREX, we are primarily concerned with the issues in point 6. For this purpose, research by haulers and forwarders, including their logged data (from the HGV manufacturer service point), was carried out and analysed. The following conclusion can be made:

The proportion of kilometres driven to the number of working days to the amount of engine idle time in %.

We could establish that a higher amount of the running engine is idle if

The data shown in fig. 1 is the log-data of from a HGV service station that 2 forwarder HGVs in long-distance transport logged weekly and submitted.             

Fig. 1

Reduction of CO2 output through use of the MEC 1.4 from MEBREX electric solutions GmbH.

A field test was carried out in order to establish whether using the MEC 1.4 results in a reduction of idle time, as well as a drastic saving in fuel consumption. MEC 1.4s were installed in two different HGVs and tested over a period of weeks.

The "First week without MEC" shown in Fig. 2 represents the initial situation (test week one) of both trucks and their idling percentage. In the first week with the MEC 1.4 (test week two), a reduction of 54% could already be noticed on truck one and 24% on truck two. Due to the growing confidence of the driver in the fully automatic function of the MEC 1.4, there was a reduction of the idling percentage by 82% on truck one and 73% on truck two in three weeks! This is shown in Fig. 2.

Fig .2

CO2 reduktion:

After only three weeks use of the MEC 1.4, a reduction in CO2 of more than 17.9% could be realised.

Fig .3

Possible potential savings per year through use of the MEC 1.4

IThe topic of the competitiveness of German carriers compared with competitors in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states has been covered in Springerverlag’s diverse „VerkehrsRundschau“ broadcasts. Potential savings could possibly make German transportation companies more competitive.

Fig. 4 illustrates how much a carrier could saving per year and HGV in fuel costs. The average values to calculate the illustrated data were determined as follows:

• Total yearly kilometres =  Frauenhofer study 2019  “climate balance, costs and the different potential fuel and engine types for cars and HGVs (fraunhofer.de)”.

• Average consumption of HGVs >25T “climate balance, costs and the different potential fuel and engine types for cars and HGVs S22 2.2.4“.  “Climate balance, costs and the different potential fuel and engine types for cars and HGVs“ (fraunhofer.de)”.

Up to 15% could be saved per year and HGV in fuel costs.  Currently,  MEBREX GmbH is unaware of any development, nether for the HGV engine nor for the chassis, that could reached this goal.

We believe that this saving is possible, even if not in all cases, for a large number of HGVs!

MEC 1.4 - What is it, how does it work and what are the benefits?    

The MEC 1.4 (Fig. 5) is a generator with fast charging function!  Fast charging because the generated current is delivered as direct current directly into the battery and thus a battery can be charged twice as fast as the truck engine with its built-in alternator allows at idle. Fig. 6 shows the differences to possible scenarios and their costs of battery charging.

Fig.5

                                                                                             

Fig. 6

Service costs:

Due to the possible savings during idle time (as illustrated in Fig. 2), the HGV service interval is increased. Therefore, over a period of many years, one or two service intervals can be saved. These costs are, however, difficult to illustrate owing to manufacturers’ varying interval specifications.

Battery replacement:

Vehicles with higher idle consumption require a battery replacement every two years. Using the MEC 1.4 can extend this time period up to 6 years, as illustrated in the diagram (Fig. 7).