Environmentally friendly transportation is picking up speed. With a fully charged storage battery, an e-bus travels from depot to final stop, repeating this cycle until recharging is required. While passengers are getting on and off, the bus takes advantage of opportunity or flash charging in order to top up, and at the end of the day it returns to the depot where the batteries are charged overnight.

This is no longer an isolated case. More and more e-buses are being used in our cities. And the number of electric vehicles used in public transportation will continue to rise, not least due to the EU’s Clean Vehicle Directive which requires transportation companies to fulfill a minimum quota for emission-free vehicles when purchasing new equipment. Although battery-powered city buses help to achieve climate protection targets and reduce CO2 emissions, the new technology used in e-buses involves risks as well, including the risk of fire.

In order to assure uninterrupted operation all day long, the entire fleet of buses is often charged overnight at the depot, usually unattended. A safe charging process plays an extremely important role in this regard, because a charging fault can cause the batteries to ignite.

As a fire prevention measure, standards-compliant functional testing of electric vehicles, battery storage systems and the charging infrastructure should be performed. Emphasis is focused on selecting the right measuring and test instruments to this end. As one of the world’s leading suppliers of metrology systems, Gossen Metrawatt guarantees an individualized safety concept for your e-bus fleet with rugged, innovative test technology.

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Safe e-mobility
Testing of vehicles with electric drives

Are you a car manufacturer who needs to verify that electric vehicles meet international electrical safety requirements in accordance with UN ECE-R100? Can you assure that all drive components are protected against short-circuits and that no potential danger exists for passengers or service personnel working on electrical components?

High-voltage safety is becoming increasingly important for the successful operation of electric vehicles, but it’s often not taken into consideration until it’s too late. Gossen Metrawatt has developed efficient solutions for testing the effectiveness of protective measures in electric vehicles in order to ensure safe work on vehicles with HV technology. The METRAHIT IM E-DRIVE BT measuring instrument makes it possible to detect malfunctions in vehicles at an early stage and ensure effective fire protection.

METRAHIT IM E-DRIVE BT

Product benefits:

• Safety testing of high-voltage systems in accordance with UN ECE R100
• Battery-powered for location-independent testing covering all aspects of electromobility
• Color graphic display supports intuitive operation

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Fail-safe power supply
Testing of storage batteries

Suppose you operate large fleets of electric vehicles and you’re dependent on a continuous supply of electrical power. You make use of efficient UPS systems in your depot in order to ensure uninterrupted e-mobility, and to protect operations from power failures and voltage dips. Battery storage capacity plays a central role for UPS systems, which can decrease as the battery ages, thus compromising the quality of the power supply.

We recommend checking battery status at regular intervals in order to avoid power supply issues and to provide high-quality transportation services. Determining the storage batteries’ state of health makes it possible to identify defective blocks at an early stage, thus delaying costly replacement of UPS batteries.

With its METRACELL BT PRO, Gossen Metrawatt offers a compact, rugged instrument for testing storage batteries. The battery-powered test instrument features a wide range of test functions and provides a comprehensive picture of the battery’s condition by performing capacitance, resistance, voltage and interval measurements.

METRACELL BT PRO

Product benefits:

• Early diagnosis of possible damage to stationary battery systems
• Precise measurement of internal resistance for exact SoH evaluation
• Measurements are possible under float, charging and discharging conditions

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Reliable charging infrastructure
Safety testing of charging points and power quality analysis

Performance requirements grow along with increasing numbers of vehicles in the e-vehicle fleet. Several electric vehicles must be charged at the same time. In addition to a consistently safe charging process, this also necessitates an effective load management system. Regardless of which charging technology is used – plug-in, pantograph or inductive – regular testing of electrical safety at charging stations and a comprehensive power quality analysis are necessary. Compliance with legal and normative requirements is cost-saving and economical. Investing in specialized, top-quality test instruments pays off.

Based on its expertise in the field of AC and DC power analysis, Gossen Metrawatt offers diagnostic testers for simulating the charging process. In combination with the PROFITEST MF XTRA and the PROFITEST PRIME, you can easily test and document the effectiveness of protective measures for electrical safety at AC/DC charging points. With the help of the LINAX PQ1000 power quality analyzer, you can analyze energy consumption and grid status, and detect power quality problems at an early stage. Continuous monitoring can prevent operational failures which may lead to significant financial losses. The instrument permits continuous assessment of power quality in accordance with IEC 61000-4-30 edition 3 in class S.