Ground Support Worldwide - 14

COVER STORY

can bring down CO2 emissions by 90
percent, equal to 190,000 pounds, and
the NOx by 95 percent.
"But many airports have hundreds of units and that is when it
really starts to make a significant
impact on things," Elvstroem
says, emphasizing that customers who evaluate their operational needs stand to better
reduce emissions and realize
more savings.
In contrast to a traditional engine running
at speeds of 2,000 rpm
or higher, the electric
7400 emits almost
zero noise. The
reduced noise provides added safety in
addition to comfort in
the work environment.
"The engine drive
GPU has a genset consistent of an engine and
generator - a lot of moving and noisy parts. With
the eGPU, there are no
moving parts inside,"
Elvstroem says. "It's
what we call a solid-state technology. It's
quiet. It's only giving a
little bit of a humming
sound. But nothing
compared to an engine drive."
Elvstroem says the unit is so quiet, a
customer in Holland feared a new unit was
not working. The station manager had to
explain that it was working, although the
ground handler was not used to being able
to communicate near the previous GPUs.
"It's really a significant difference. It's
like from really, really high levels to nothing that you hear out the ramp in an airport, where you basically have noise from all
angles anyhow, with pushbacks and aircraft
taking off and landing," Elvstroem says. "In
that environment, consider it no noise."
With no moving parts within the 7400
eGPU, maintenance costs are also reduced.
The only parts that need to be maintained
are the tow-bar, the cable and connector
and a few other consumables.

14 GROUND SUPPORT WORLDWIDE

"It's designed in a way
that you never need to
access inside the battery packs themselves,"
Elvstroem says, adding Nissan offers a
five-year standard
warranty on its battery packs. "Therefore, there is very little
maintenance."
What's more, with limited maintenance,
fleet capacity can be reduced because each
unit's in-service time increases.
"Apart from you saving heavily on fuel, on
top of that you don't need the same number
of units to accommodate the same work,"
Elvstroem says, noting the market traditionally has a spare capacity of 20-30 percent
diesel GPUs to sustain operations.

The Right Combination of
Components
While just one battery pack is needed to
power a Nissan Leaf automobile, the ITW
GSE 7400 eGPU uses four packs in its standard 90 kVA unit.
"We need more power than what is in

MAY 2020

one Nissan Leaf car to power maybe 10 or
15 aircraft turnarounds between charging,"
Elvstroem explains, noting the 7400 eGPU
is designed to operate for a full day and can
charge during an airport's lowest operational periods.
"It's key not to charge during peak hours,"
he continues. "During peak hours, the entire
infrastructure at the airport is stressed with
all these other charging systems, anyhow.
So with this, when you have a low peak,
then you charge."
When recharging is required, the 7400's
onboard charger allows recharging from any
three-phase 50 or 60 Hz outlet. This eliminates the need for a charging station or frees
up capacity at a charging station for other
pieces of GSE. It takes 2-3 hours to recharge
from nearly zero to full capacity.
"It has a financial cost to add these
chargers and build them into the product,
instead of having them externally. But the
benefit is just as easily compensated because
now you don't need to go out and invest in
kinds of other charging systems before you
start an operation," Elvstroem says, noting
nearly 20 demos are taking place at airports

Ground Support Worldwide

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