Hybrid cranes for land in ports are coming now, and they are reporting phenomenal fuel savings of 40-70%!
This falls neatly in line with our own simulations of battery hybrid crane operations on ships, see here, where we simulated a reduction in fuel consumption of 30%.
In this ground breaking case we have two different rubber tyre gantry crane (rtg) manufacturers who are now making hybrid versions of their cranes: MJ EcoPower and Kalmar.
These crane manufacturers are taking advantage of the advances in lithium-ion battery technology and are creating crane systems that:
- Use a lithium-ion battery pack for hybrid operation
- Replace the diesel generator set with a much smaller one (as an illustrative example they could replace a 500 kW genset with a 125 kW genset)
By using these new systems they:
- Reduce fuel consumption by 40-70%.
- Have longer intervals between maintenance, because the gensets are not running at low loads or changing their loads frequently.
- Reduce the noise from the cranes.
See here and here for other news articles on these cranes.
This application of batteries is so obviously beneficial that in a very short time all crane manufacturers will have to follow suit. Good work!