Active Power Flywheel Protects EV Production without Diesel Generator
Modern electric vehicle manufacturing is heavily automated meaning the downtime costs of any sudden and complete loss of power to a production line can be catastrophic.
Power outages resulting in tens of millions of dollars in losses were not uncommon in modern car manufacturing. But with the right UPS and energy storage technology they can be made a thing of the past.
The effects of power quality issues or sudden power loss down-time span scrappage, time and effort required to reset the production line which impacts welding robots, robots performing casting of car parts such as the chassis, and body part press and stamping machines.
Such factories require solutions that allow for controlled shut-down of hundreds of manufacturing robots which in turn enables fast restart when baseload power returns.
In one recent project this proved vital for Tesla, the world’s leading electric vehicle maker.
Active Power was able to hit every milestone during the entire process from Sales, Manufacturing, Shipping, Installation Assistance, Startup and Commissioning.
Active Power’s solution was to provide the car maker with a Kinetic energy store backed UPS comprising 2 x 2.4MW CleanSource PLUS MMS UPS’s, each protecting a 3000A production line.
Incorporating the Active Power flywheel solution would eliminate 99.9% of all unplanned outages at the site. This impressive reliability led the customer to make a strategic decision—eliminating the necessity for an ATS and Diesel Genset for long-term outages which resulted in huge cost efficiencies.
The Active Power flywheel UPS system now provides uninterrupted power to the manufacturing robots providing ample time for a safe shut-down in the case of an extended outage, enabling swift production resumption within a few hours, compared to the previous 26-28 hours of downtime required for robot reset and recalibration in the event of control power loss.
In addition, the customer acquired an Active Power CLEANSOURCE® PLUS SMS 333kW flywheel UPS to replace a 15-year-old battery UPS that failed during the project. Active Power’s agility and responsiveness were key in delivering this UPS within the customer’s tight timeframe. This installation replaced a cumbersome ~12ft wide UPS setup, eliminating the need for a separate battery room.
This project serves as the potential inaugural step among eight planned total 4.8MW installations for this EV manufacturer.
Active Power’s proven technology is based on a highly fault tolerant IGBT architecture designed to protect all critical loads, such as data centers, industrial processes and healthcare applications.
About Active Power
Active Power designs and manufactures battery-free flywheel uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and energy storage products for mission-critical power applications worldwide from its headquarters and manufacturing plant in Austin TX. The company was founded in 1996 and became public in 2001(NASDAQ).
In November 2016 the business was acquired by German group, Piller Power Systems. Today, US customers are served via Austin and internationally via Piller’s global network of subsidiaries and service centers. Piller is a division of the UK engineering and industrial group, Langley Holdings plc.