21 H2D2 snow groomer | Dossier E-Mobility Engineering | May/June 2024 GCK Battery from its technology and industry division. “Many of our organisations had worked together before. GCK and EREM had previously collaborated to make an electric motor for retrofitting passenger cars, such as the Lancia Delta. EREM and IFPEN worked together on that successful motor, which motivated us to discuss the possibility of retrofitting heavy vehicles,” says Misa Milosavljevic, project leader, electric components & systems for mobility at IFPEN. “Obviously, snow groomers are a small niche market – albeit important to electrify – but the funding grant was given knowing that the powertrain retrofitting kit we’ve developed for use with snow groomers can also be applied very well to buses, trucks and other types of heavy industrial vehicles requiring high power over lengthy travel distances one day.” Each of these France-based organisations has contributed its expertise to produce what is today a hydrogen-electric snow groomer capable of six to seven hours of operation between refuellings (a targeted runtime to suit the length of a driver’s shift with the vehicle), 15 kph top forward speed, and 320 kW of power output across its treads and blades. There is up to 84 kW/h of onboard energy in the battery pack and up to 50 kg of H2 gas, stored at 700 bar across three pressure vessel tanks. As hydrogen gas has a gravimetric energy density of 33.6 kWh/kg, this makes for 1680 kW/h of maximum total energy across the H2 tanks (and the group has a particular shared ambition towards exploring sources of green hydrogen). The system was created by retrofitting an existing, dieselpowered snow groomer with the FCEV powertrain, both to avoid the project overheads of making a new one from scratch and to demonstrate how existing, familiar equipment could be cost-effectively and labour-efficiently made into something sustainable and zero-carbon as a retrofit solution or an all-new EV and powertrain. That retrofitted machine is about 9 m long, 3.5 m wide and 3.2 m tall, while weighing about 11 t. Through its electric powertrain and weight distribution, the snow groomer can safely operate on inclines of 45°. “The group of companies behind this project first started discussions in early 2021, and by the middle of the year the project was officially launched, with all the partnerships, roles and objectives having been defined, and grants from the French government having come in,” says Florent Aussibal, retrofit projects manager at GCK Mobility. “During 2022 and 2023, we focused on the design and engineering phases of the project, with particular work on assembling the major components, such as the battery pack, the fuel over the next 50 years), and one can anticipate great motivation to design an electrified snow groomer. Alliance Française The H2D2 project is an effort to realise precisely this, funded through the France 2030 plan for strategic green investments, and owned and operated by L’Agence De La Transition Écologique (ADEME), France’s agency for fighting global warming. The H2D2 snow groomer integrates a hydrogen fuel-cell range extender; H2 gas being the main energy storage medium chosen by the consortium’s engineering contributors. These include motor manufacturer EREM, public research organisation IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN), Kässbohrer and Groupe GCK (Green Corp Konnection) – specifically, GCK Mobility from the group’s mobility division, and The H2D2 snow groomer is a retrofitted PistenBully 600, a popular model among ski resorts in France and worldwide (Image courtesy of PistenBully)
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