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eGSE

"Specifying thin plate pure lead batteries for our new burden carriers made
sense financially and environmentally,"
Girting says. "The NexSys PURE batteries eliminate the cost of replacing batteries
in a year or less and eliminate the risk of
spills. Plus, the data suggested that they
would last three years or more. All things
considered, going with the NexSys PURE
battery was an obvious choice."

TPPL Success in Service

The Benefits of TPPL
Technology for GSE
Developed for military use in the 1970s,
TPPL technology offers several benefits
for GSE applications. Unlike flooded lead
acid batteries, TPPL batteries are sealed and
never require watering.
This feature eliminates the associated
maintenance hours and the risk of hazardous acid spills, along with the hassle
of reporting these spills to airport environmental offices.

TPPL batteries also withstand shock,
vibration and extreme temperatures. They
have extremely fast charge rates and can
be opportunity-charged during breaks and
in-between flights with no risk of damage.
In fact, TPPL batteries offer a maintenance
and charging footprint that is similar to
lithium-ion batteries while delivering
excellent cycle life with a favorable total
cost of ownership.

A Terminal Cart Trial
Working with Allen Energy, the EnerSys representative, and Columbia Vehicle
Group Inc., the burden carrier manufacturer, American initiated a TPPL battery
trial at Charlotte Douglas International
Airport. For the trial, two Columbia burden carriers were each outfitted with four
NexSys PURE TPPL 12-volt batteries.
From May 2015 to May 2016, the carriers
were used to ferry passengers around the
terminal, and the batteries ran as promised,
with no issues or unexpected downtime.
In addition to running past the one-year
mark and outlasting the previously used
conventional batteries, the trial also produced a year of operating data showing that
the NexSys PURE batteries could exceed
three years of life.
As a result, Joe Girting, American's GSE
fleet manager, made NexSys PURE the
airline's official battery for all new burden
carriers.

Today, Girting's decision has proven to be
beneficial for the airline. In 2018, American purchased a new fleet of more than 30
Columbia burden carriers outfitted with the
NexSys PURE TPPL batteries. According
to operating data captured in April 2020,
the batteries are on track to substantially
exceed their 36-month warranty. The data
shows an expected service life for this fleet
to be between four and six years.
According to Todd Allen, president of
Allen Energy, it may be even longer than
that. Allen states that EnerSys recently
downloaded data from NexSys PURE
batteries installed in an American maintenance cart burden carrier at Pittsburgh
International Airport. These batteries were
installed in 2015, at roughly the same time
as the initial trial at Charlotte.
"At about 60 months in, the batteries
have only used about half of their available
throughput in amp-hours. As they did in
the Charlotte trial, these TPPL batteries
have far exceeded the life of conventional
batteries," says Allen. "They are delivering
an exceptional long-term value for American - one that any carrier can benefit
from, as the NexSys PURE batteries are
also available in kits to retrofit them to any
existing electric burden carrier."
American Airlines intends to keep looking for GSE applications that will benefit
from advanced battery technologies like
TPPL.
"Thin plate pure lead technology aligns
perfectly with our corporate commitment
to purchase equipment with lower emissions, and with our ongoing efforts to optimize our operations and operating costs,"
Girting says.

This article was provided by EnerSys

AUGUST 2020

AviationPros.com

http://www.AviationPros.com

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