RENERA LLC, a subsidiary of the TVEL Fuel Company, the energy storage solutions company for Rosatom have announced that the brand has organised the first electric kart race in Russia. Rosatom’s lithium-ion batteries will be equipped on MINI class race cars. The race was held for children between the age of 9 and 11 years old at the Izhorets karting track in Kolpino, Saint-Petersburg.
The electric karts are powered by a 10 kW electric motor coupled to a 40 Ah capacity RENERA batteries that have been designed and developed to keep the kart going-on in race mode for at least 20 minutes. The battery packs are portable and swappable enabling the kart to quickly exchange the drained battery for a fully charged one and continue the race. The batteries can also be recharged fully in two hours.
The brand has produced 10 such karts for racing and compared to petrol-fueled karts, the electric ones claim to be more dynamic and manoeuvrable on the race track. Additionally, the electric karts do not produce any tailpipe emissions like their gasoline counterparts, making them environmentally friendly as well as safe for young children especially when karting indoors, killing not two but three birds with one stone.
Like vehicles on the roads, karts are also evolving and transitioning towards electric opens up new opportunities for both rental karting and professional teams. The electric karts are also likely to reduce the cost of maintenance and fuel for the teams as well as for rental operators as lithium-ion batteries are the optimal solution for energy storage both from the technical and economic point of view. The brand also explains that RENERA batteries are manufactured keeping in mind high safety standards and similar batteries are used in electric passenger vehicles and electric vehicles of the world’s largest manufactures. The batteries are sealed do not require maintenance and special rooms for charging and have a long service life.
Rosatom has resources and competencies to offer energy solutions across the nuclear supply chain and possesses assets such as design, construction and operation of nuclear power stations, uranium mining, conversion and enrichment, the supply of nuclear fuel, decommissioning, spent fuel storage and transportation and safe nuclear waste disposal. Rosatom has the world’s only nuclear icebreaker fleet, the most powerful fast neutron reactor; it contributes to digitalization as well as nuclear medicine. The company has over 300 enterprises and organizations and over 250,000 employees.