PowerDesigners is pleased to announce the introduction of the REVOLUTION™ line of chargers defining a new era in charging technology. The REVOLUTION series is one of the first industrial charger product lines to fully meet the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) new energy efficiency standards scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2014. Current industrial battery charging technology exhibits high efficiency (~90%) only during the peak of the charge cycle, a very limited portion of the operating range. 

Typically, the charging efficiency is significantly lower during the beginning of the charge cycle and especially during the end of the charge cycle. As a result, the overall charge cycle efficiency of most High Frequency chargers is less than 85%.“The REVOLUTION line of chargers, however, employs a patent pending technology that maintains a charging efficiency greater than 90% over the entire charge cycle,” says Dr. Nasser Kutkut, founder and consulting CTO of PowerDesigners. “In addition, the REVOLUTION chargers exceed 92% efficiency during the peak of the charge cycle. Very high overall and peak efficiencies result in true energy savings of greater than 6% as compared to current leading high frequency chargers,” concludes Dr. Kutkut. “The higher total charge cycle efficiency achieved by the REVOLUTION chargers results in the lowest energy cost per charge cycle in the industry. For a typical 36V/850Ahr battery, this savings translates into ~3.5kWhr per charge cycle, or greater than 1MWhr per year per battery,” says Dr. Kutkut.The REVOLUTION line of chargers also feature advanced high frequency power conversion technologies, including soft switching and digital controls. Soft switching techniques enable the switching of power semiconductor devices (i.e. MOSFETS) at or near zero voltage or zero current conditions. This results in minimal switching losses at higher efficiencies, allowing operation at very high switching frequencies and enabling smaller chargers with minimal weight.