Selected for presentation in the EVS-23 - 23rd International Electric Vehicle Symposium, December 2-5, 2007, Anaheim, Califormia, USA
04/12/07 - Jayme Buarque de Hollanda and Antonio Nunes Jr.
This paper describes a project of a heavy duty ethanol hybrid electric truck (EHET) for the transportation of sugar-cane from the plantations to the distilleries. It presents the basic design concepts and the advantages to be obtained from its employment.
The author believes that this is the best way to reduce both operational costs and the fossil fuel consumption of ethanol industry, which is mostly due to sugar cane transportation. This advantage tends to increase in the coming years, since the ratio of fossil fuel consumption per ethanol unit produced will increase, as new distilleries capacity is four to five times larger than the present average. Hence, transportation distances will increase as harvesting areas increase.
The project will be developed in two phases, starting with the conversion of three diesel-powered trucks into EHET, to be used regularly in order to provide significant experience data.
Read the article Ethanol Hybrid Electric Truck (EHET) (126K.pdf).
