Here it is! The Progress Rail battery switcher for Vale Mining in Brazil. Progress is claiming this unit can operate up to 24 hrs without charge depending on duty cycles.
Here’s a link to the article
“Oh crap… I forgot to plug in the swticher before I left!”
Yeah there’s no mention of how it’s charged. I’d assume plug in.
OK, i plug it in. How long does it take to charge at 110 volts???
I wonder if it is narrow gauge? It’s on 3-rail track, and the loco in the background looks bigger.
Brazil operates a tri gauge network; 1600mm, 1435mm, and 1000mm. Vale leases lines using; 1600mm, and 1000mm gauge. Yes this is a NG unit.
I don’t know anything about these, so this may be a silly question.
How does a locomotive with batteries compare in size with a normal diesel?
Without fuel tanks, diesel engine, and generator, do the batteries take up all that room?
Interesting that almost everything about this locomotive refers to the initial publicity blitz that Progress sent out around mid-July… often so word-for-word that we can ‘flip around the dial’ and see whose editors are lazy or not. I have so far not seen any technical discussion of the Joule at all, although it was promised in the press release.
Interestingly EMD only filed trademark on JOULE for locomotives in early July.
The unit has only been working in Brazil since late September, so perhaps not enough experience to comment on practical performance. Amusingly it was delivered with a tarp covering it because the owner wanted a publicity ‘big reveal’; the long hood has a Pakistani-bus color scheme “100% ELETRICA” supergraphic on it now.
It appears to me that EMD has tumbled to the understanding that aggressive battery cooling is a major key to practical use in flat switching just as it is for high performance in road vehicles. There are radiator openings each side and I would presume a system of pumped liquid coolant through the cells as installed. Depending on climate I’d expect this to ‘double’ with onboard heating to keep the battery at reasonable temperature.
You don’t charge a system like this at 110 or even 220V. A reasonable guide for what EMD and Vale will use can be found in the Tesla Megacharger (for trucks) where the battery ‘strings’ are charged in parallel, priportional to the nominal voltage per string. (This is something just over 300V for many electric cars; I would predict it to be around nominal DC-link voltage for EMD’s regular AC production locomotives if they have their production heads screwed on right). 100% ELETRICA means there is no onboard charging engine, something I expect they will eventually provide (using carbon-neutral renewable-derived fuel of course) when they have a little experience with 80-20 charge limits or the current equivalent for these actual c
Looked at another way, you want as much ‘battery’ as you can afford.
In this particular case the Vale Joule does not have the full optional battery capacity installed, so I expect some of that long hood is either empty or has something else installed in it. If cooling is liquid and competently designed there is little restriction on where in the locomotive the actual strings can go; it would be logical on a meter-gauge locomotive presumably bodied for North American clearances to have as much heavy equipment or battery in the area ‘down low’ below the frame and between the trucks as possible (comparable in part to the old GM ‘skateboard’ electric-car battery design) but I suspect EMD has done its DFM so that all Joules have their battery architecture relatively ‘in common’.
Note that more battery is better whether you actually deep-cycle it or not, and the aggressive cooling arrangements may add considerable volume to the ‘assembled’ battery as installed in the locomotive; it is also possible that some space is reserved for access or optimized modular packaging for ease in maintenance or repair.
110V might be adeqaute to handle the self-discharge rate of the battery.
My first guess is that a DC charging link would be at the battery voltage, charging time would be determined by how big a cable you would want to use. The ultimate limit is the battery itself, and presumably the battery will be charged at a rate conducive to many charge/discharge cycles.
I would wonder if the batteries are set up so that you would have several battery packs running in parallel, each with a dedicated contactor to isolate the individual packs - which then would allow for multiple lower current cables. An external connector that was hardwired to all of the batteries in parallel would be asking for trouble or a poor attempt to make a zeta pinch fusion reactor.
Power electronics have advanced to the point that a connection to 4160V 3 phase power isn’t entirely out of the question.
The definition of ‘battery voltage’ here is what I meant by ‘string voltage’ – I’m assuming that charging connections need not be the same as ‘discharging’ ones, so a nominal ‘1500V’ battery might be a series/parallel combination of lower-voltage strings each with its own crossbar-switch connection to charging. I think that is what you mean when you say
I am assuming that any sensible large traction battery will be structured that way, especially if integrated with supercapacitor discharge management, and further with the ability to detect and as necessary ‘switch out’ cells that are defective, overheating, etc. or to rotate high discharge (analogous to how the GM Northstar handles LOCA ‘limp-home’ accommodation through selective cylinder activation).
Nonetheless, provided you have an adequate current source (and competent cell cooling for the aggregate current and chemistry!) full parallel charge will give the shortest recharge time – again, I think the discussions of the Tesla Megacharger covered many, if not most of the relevant issues by reasonably early on. I do presume that the facility to be switched does in fact have access to high-amperage sources; the concern then becomes the trade off between
With respect to 4.16kVAC charging: I would assume that vacuum contactors would be used to minimize space used. I would also assume that some sort of interlock would be used to prevent the contacts on the plug from being energized when the plug is not firmly seated. The power electronics needed to control charging almost certainly be capable of soft starting and soft stopping to minimize stress on the HV contactors.
My idea with charging battery modules individually does not preclude simultaneous charging, one option is to use multiple cables so that the cable and connector weights are reasonable. Another option is a bus energized at a potential somewhat higher than the maximum possible charge voltage and use individual buck converters to regulate individual charging voltage and current. This would provide one layer of isolation between the battery pack and external HVDC connector.
FWIW, similar issues crop up in data centers running on 380VDC with the batteries floating on the 380VDC bus.
Overmod:
Was calling the Joule locomotive the “Jouse”, a typo or an intentional play-on-words on the slang expression for electric power “juice”, as in “give it the juice” meaning switch the electric power back on?
What ever happened to NS battery locomotive No. 9999, Going down the energy trail it was recharged by by NS’s steam stationary generating plant fired by coal.
It was, in a word, the result of typing on a phone with a fever and missing it in repeat editing.
The 999 was another example of “engineers” not knowing quite enough practical railroading about how a switcher is supposed to be used. If you design it as a ‘green solution’ or a penny-pinching use of alternative or ‘waste’ energy instead of a high-performance vehicle you will likely fail the same way.
Note there is a similar concern for fuel-efficient switchers. Slow loading is a disaster there, whether to save money or fuel or to reduce emissions. I still wonder why more genset engines aren’t built with predictive engine start, so crews ‘about to do’ a shove can’t get additional engines started and up to power notch “just-in-time” to be needed. As I recall even the original built-out massively parallel “genset” locomotive (the Baldwin Essl locomotive that was rebuilt into the first Centipede) was able to be run that way…
999 was sold awhile back. Looks to be in CA now.
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/06/19/zero-emission-locomotive-999-restored-for-use-in-california/
That’s good to see. The last time I saw it was in Roanoke, with the cab windows knocked out.
Interesting that it’s been engineered to use old (or remanufactured) hybrid-car batteries or strings, which is a logical source. The latent worry I’d have is that batteries now ‘uneconomically suitable’ for hybrid-vehicle cycling might not be suitable for inherently high-drain and then heavy-charge repeat cycling. I guess we’ll see if they get it ‘right’ enough this time around.
Quote from the linked article
" It is expected to be used (at last) in commercial service in southern California’s Los Angeles Basin. Diesel engines are in wide use there and the region has horrible air quality as a result, the worst in the country."
Yeah it’s not the millions of personal vehicles burning gasoline… It’s the dozens of switch engines in the LA Basin…
The air quality has improved big time in LA from the time of my childhood there up until today…
This seems to be a near ideal solution for super/ultra capacitors, where the capacitors would be providing the power “right now” while the engines were loading. Lithium batteries intended for portable tools would be another option (high peak power, fast recharge).
Back in the 1960’s the Milwaukee was actually stringing up wire on industrial trackage in the Butte and Deer Lodge areas as the electric switchers had instantaneous response to changes in the controller.
I, too, am glad to see a new life for 999. I was brought in as a consultant in 2008 for the original build of that loco to design the equipment arrangement and then the structural design for the battery racks. The original plan was to use a quantity 60 of GNB 64 volt batteries of the same form factor as the SLS-710 loco starting battery. There were 48 batteries above deck in three racks of 16 each with 12 more below deck where the fuel tank usually sits. I did the design and FEA with a draftsman making the drawings - at that point I left the project and went on to other jobs. They built the racks as I had designed them but then decided to go the 12V battery way, why I don’t know. I do know NS wanted to use a 12V battery developed by an offshoot of CAT called the Firefly which wasn’t ready at the time. So they ended up making trays holding multiple 12V batteries that fit into the racks designed for the loco starting batteries. The 64V batteries were to be connected in strings of 10 in series to drive chopper modules for traction and accessories.
As far as the Joule, the only info I have gotten from my friends at PR is that this is a project led by Zeit who is part of Progress Rail Brazil.
Dave