Swiss Partners
Ingenieurbüro Eisenring, Niederuzwil,
http://www.stromboli.ch/de/electric-vehicles/ev-stromboli-ii/,
Markus Eisenring; Ingenieurbüro Kuster, Thomas Kuster
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Swiss Contribution
The Eisenring Engineering Office has extensive experience in the Nepali electric vehicle industry. In collaboration with the Kuster Engineering Office, it has equipped electric vehicles with lithium batteries and has published a summary report on the use of lithium batteries in hybrid and electric vehicles.
Description
There are 700 electric public transport vehicles (Safa Tempos) in use in Nepal. These depend on a single lead battery supplier. Lithium batteries have several advantages; their operating costs are much lower, they are lighter and their greater capacity increases the autonomy of the vehicles. This project aims to equip ten vehicles with lithium batteries in order to demonstrate that it is possible to increase energy efficiency and reduce costs. For this purpose, lead batteries will be replaced by lithium batteries, a battery management system (BMS) will be set up and a charger will be mounted in the vehicles in a fixed manner – all under the supervision of Swiss partners. This will be done at the charging stations where operators will be trained to transform other vehicles by themselves.
Results
10 Safa Tempos equipped with lithium batteries have been in service since January 2017. They travel from 2 600 to 3 200 km per month. Energy savings are over 50% (reduced consumption from 6.6 kWh to 2.8 kWh per round trip). 10 people were trained for vehicle conversion activities, six people were trained for the transformation of charging stations and 50 people received driving instructions.
Impacts
Since the project’s end, 15 additional vehicles have been converted to lithium batteries, without further financial support from REPIC. More Safa Tempos owners also want the new system. This project is helping to ensure that electric motors in vehicles are not replaced by combustion engines.