Protects the environment
-0 dBA
Reduces noise
Reduces local emissions
Works and travels
electrically powered
Plasser & Theurer recently won the GreenTech Award. The company received the award thanks to its numerous patents for innovations that contribute significantly to climate protection. The climate crisis requires all industries to be innovative. Plasser & Theurer demonstrated this innovative spirit with its patents from the field of E³ technology.
Plasser & Theurer GreenTech innovations
Track maintenance machines by the Austrian company use electrical energy from both the contact wire and from batteries to power the working drive. E³ drive technologies reduce local emissions – of both pollutants and noise – to a minimum at the worksite. Economic – Ecologic – Ergonomic: that is what Plasser & Theurer machines stand for.
Several Plasser & Theurer innovations were included in the assessment performed by the Austrian Association for Consumer Studies (ÖGVS). One of the submitted patents aims to use the brake power of a cyclic-action tamping machine to supply work units without intermediate energy storage. Due to the increased energy efficiency of the electric system, this results in an improved energy balance overall. Another invention for the HTW battery fire protection system comprises a safety system for large battery modules supplying the track maintenance machine’s travel drive and working drive. This innovation prevents battery modules from overheating in case a malfunction occurs while the internal monitoring system is switched off, a scenario that could occur when a track maintenance machine is out of service for a long time.
There is no doubt about the ecological and economic benefits of E3 hybrid technology. It makes a significant contribution towards meeting the EU’s climate targets.
Awarding process and background
In 2020/21, the GreenTech Award is the first time ÖGVS honours Austrian companies whose inventiveness demonstrably promotes climate protection or whose ideas enable adapting to climate change.
The GreenTech Award focusses on the newly created patent class Y02 of the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). The CPC is a patent classification system jointly developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The Y02 patent class comprises patents for “technologies or applications for mitigation or adaptation against climate change”. For presenting the GreenTech Award, ÖGVS determined the number of patents granted to Austrian companies between 1 January 2017 and 30 September 2020. The research by ÖGVS included all patent offices worldwide.