New Investigation in Energy Regeneration of Hydraulic Elevators

In the conventional valve-controlled hydraulic elevator, when the cabin moves downwards, the entire potential energy of the cabin is wasted and converted into fluid heat by throttling. Thus, the energy consumption of a traditional hydraulic elevator is much higher than that of the traction elevator. To reduce the energy consumption and power installation requirements, the energy-regenerative hydraulic elevators have been developed since 1997. In this paper, different generations of the design are discussed for energy-regenerative system; in particular, a new generation is focused on in detail. Experimental studies of this new design are carried out to compare the energy consumption of different system designs of hydraulic elevator. Finally, a conclusion is drawn that the new generation of hydraulic elevator can achieve a significant energy-saving performance compared to the traditional elevators.