Abstract
Global warming and the dependance on expensive fossil fuels in uncertain times are two main drivers for the development of alternative drivetrains. The alpine logging sector is no exception. Since the introduction of the first electrified models of small semi-automated carriages about a decade ago, the industry has also witnessed increasingly radical innovations in heavy equipment. Tower yarders and self-propelled carriages are two examples. This work provides preliminary results of a study involving several key sub-systems of a hybrid self-propelled carriage. Performance and efficiency studies of the engine-generator unit, the energy dissipation unit and the battery system were performed. The engine-generator set was found to achieve an overall efficiency of up to 33.9%, and the battery system can supply a power of 120 kW with less than 10% of losses. Results demonstrate the performance advantage compared to conventional Diesel-hydraulic setups and enable insights into the energy-saving potential of electrified equipment in heavy-duty logging applications.