Nuremberg – Klinkhammer has equipped the storage and retrieval crane of its automated small-parts warehouse with energy-saving capacitors as a storage medium. The modern, sustainable system can be seen as a demonstration system in the new technical center of Klinkhammer. Klinkhammer can now offer its customers the modern technology for storage and retrieval cranes saving up to 40 % energy. In addition, due to the reduced peak currents on the supply side, both the feed lines and the transformer station can be dimensioned smaller.
The new technical center of Klinkhammer Intralogistics GmbH is equipped with a storage system which temporarily stores the braking energy of the storage and retrieval crane directly in the drive system for the next acceleration phase. This is enabled by supercaps as a storage medium. The capacitor bank used here can store up to 620 kW of electrical energy. With this sustainable, modern technology, the operator can save up to 40% energy, since the energy is not lost as heat in the braking resistor when braking, but is stored locally and made available again for the next acceleration process. Mains power peaks when accelerating can be compensated for by the stored recuperation energy, which reduces mains perturbations and improves mains quality. Infrastructure such as UPS and system components such as control cabinets or fuses can be designed smaller and thus offer savings potential.
Supercaps can be installed both in the automated container warehouse and in the automated pallet high-bay warehouse. Supercaps are capacitors with a high power density. Compared to normal electrolytic capacitors, they have a much higher capacity. Compared to lithium-ion batteries, they offer a significantly higher peak performance and a longer service life.
In the case of storage and retrieval cranes in the cold storage area, the capacitor storage pays for itself particularly quickly, since the regenerative energy is not converted into thermal energy, as is usual with braking resistors, which then has to be compensated for with additional energy consumption by the cooling system. Another interesting application is the modernization of existing storage and retrieval cranes. For retrofits, the local capacitor storage offers the possibility of accelerating more dynamically or moving higher loads without changing the network supply infrastructure.