Behrens-Wöhlk GmbH & Co. KG

With a total of 14 sites, the Behrens Group is one of the leading wholesalers of wood and construction elements in Germany. The Group operates 115 forklift trucks, for example, in the central warehouse of BERO Holzhandelsgesellschaft mbH in Drensteinfurt near Münster: 16 electric lateral stacking trucks and special equipment are used here for picking in order to transport goods (sometimes weighing tonnes) reliably and efficiently from the goods-in area into the warehouse and then on for dispatch.

The trucks draw their energy from lead-acid batteries, and many of them have back-up batteries due to long operating times. However, the high-frequency (HF) battery chargers used in the past led to major problems. Load peaks, which occurred during simultaneous charging of the trucks, caused severe frequency interference in the grid, and consequently the IT system would regularly crash. The result was significant operational restrictions and unnecessary costs.