Transforming Heavy Trucking Companies into Mobile Clean Energy Producers
Andrew Amigo, Blackburn Energy
Blackburn Energy is a startup working to transform the heavy trucking industry. Blackburn Energy’s RelGen® system is helping truckers to comply with anti-idling laws and reduce CO2 emissions by harvesting wasted kinetic energy and using it to power liftgates and long-haul sleeper cabs. Putting a 21st-century overlay on 19th-century technology, the Blackburn team developed a system to capture energy from the drive shaft rotation. They used MATLAB® and Simulink® to look at what the engine was doing. The team then determined if the vehicle was braking or accelerating by reading the truck’s computer output and automatically turning the energy capture system on and off.
As part of the MathWorks Startup Program, Blackburn has access to MATLAB at a startup-friendly price and engineering support from MathWorks experts, which enables them to research projects, develop prototypes, and bring their products to production.
Published: 24 Mar 2021
ANDREW AMIGO: There are a lot of laws that now govern how trucks operate. The obvious one is anti-idle laws. So if you take a driver who's trying to make a delivery, the liftgate is running on the engine. With RelGen you can actually create electricity while the driver is driving. And now, when you make that delivery, you shut the engine off and comply with your anti-idle laws, all without pollutants
RelGen also works really well in long-haul tractor trailers. These are the trucks where the driver drives across country and lives in the truck. We can create clean energy during the day while they drive, store it, and then run the hotel load.
Remember, there's a human in that cab. They need their heat. They need their air conditioning. We can provide that on clean energy that allows them to shut the engine off. And when you shut the engine off, you're going to save about 2,000 gallons of diesel per truck. The US fleet, according to the EPA, will burn about a billion gallons of diesel a year just sitting in parking lots. And that emits between 10 and 11 million tons of CO2.
We're trying to take the energy that is poured into the 19th century technology and add a 21st century overlay on it, and harvest wasted energy from that equation. You see MATLAB Simulink. You see the startup program. That partnership has enabled us to build out that software side. Where MATLAB, and really Simulink, sit for us is where we need to intelligently look into the equation and know what the engine is doing and talking about.
So if you just want to make clean energy on gliding and braking, we will read the truck's computer-- we know when they're on the brakes-- cycle the system on, make clean energy. As soon as they start to accelerate, we'll cycle the system off, and now you're not burning any diesel.
We sell direct to fleets. We're also now working with the modification centers. So if you're buying new trucks, we can have RelGen put on at the modification center, and the brand new truck will be delivered to you with our system preinstalled ready to go.
We see opportunity all across the transportation space-- commercial marine, in agriculture, in mining. So, literally, anything with a spinning drive shaft, we can make clean energy from.
And at the end of the day, it's about what you're trying to accomplish. We're really trying to make the world a better place for drivers, for people that live in the urban core, for all of us who breathe air, for every one of us across the spectrum. Give the people something that they can make clean power with. They'll change the world.
[MUSIC PLAYING]