Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Norrdigi (NorrDigi revolutionary Energy Saver)

Teaser

Traditional hydraulic systems are very inefficient, leading to large amount of waste, in the form of heat and emissions. The NorrDigiTM system is revolutionary in the way it uses, recuperates, shares and stores energy. The system is very flow conservative, which leads to lower...

Summary

Traditional hydraulic systems are very inefficient, leading to large amount of waste, in the form of heat and emissions. The NorrDigiTM system is revolutionary in the way it uses, recuperates, shares and stores energy. The system is very flow conservative, which leads to lower flow requirements, which in turn leads to reduced pump requirements. By recuperating, sharing and storing energy, the prime mover, such as a diesel engine or electric motor, can be sized for mean power rather than peak power. By generating less heat, less cooling power is needed. All this play a large role in reducing the energy consumption and emissions. Reduced fuel consumption also has a great financial impact. For many machines in the target markets, the fuel consumption can be equal or greater than the total operator wages or the depreciation. The objectives are to commercialize the technology on a broader scale and gain adoption on suitable equipment, such as construction and material handling equipment.

Work performed

During this project, the focus has been on reducing the size, weight and cost of the NorrDigiTM solution to make it more commercially feasible. For example, the number of valves used initially was 22 for every cylinder. The project goal is to reach as close to 8 as possible, as this is the minimum number from a control perspective. A reduced number of valves is desirable from reliability, cost and physical size perspectives as well. The project continues with valve supplier, whose products appear to be more stable in dynamic operation.
The results so far have reduced the number of valves to less than half, the physical size of the manifolds to half and reduced the total cost by more than 50% for purchased components

Final results

The NorrDigiTM system has proved 45-60% fuel efficiency improvements in side-by-side tests, in the first phase on an excavator application. At the same time, a 5-12% productivity increase was accomplished. In the current phase, we’re striving for another 10-15% fuel efficiency improvement, which is the new state of the art, 3-4 times better than anything available! The impact on society is cleaner air, because the machines are only using half the amount of fuel, the machines can be made smaller, using less material. The reduced fuel consumption means improved profitability and productivity, which in part is contributed by the fewer fuel stops.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.norrhydro.com/en/engineering/norrdigi.