ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES Ӏ SPECIAL REPORT
j for procurement of buildings to say they will judge their suppliers on the basis of how much they are manufacturing in factories, on how thoroughly digitised their processes are, and how green their delivery systems are. All of this has given massive confidence to the market, and suppliers are now investing in these new techniques. “And, of course, that is a
virtuous circle, because if you invest in the right things you will significantly reduce the amount of energy you use, and that you have to pay for. You will significantly reduce the amount of labour you are using and that you will have to pay for; and incidentally, you will also significantly reduce the amount of materials that get wasted. At the moment the average construction site sends one hundred skips of rubbish, mainly to landfill, for every million pounds spent on site. That wastage should plummet.” All of which helps the green
revolution and reduces greenhouse gas emissions. And the technology to bring it about? “It will be varied. There is no ‘one size fits all’ for new cranes. Mobile cranes have two special factors. First, they operate in two modes: they drive
Blyth oRdeRs electRic cRane
The Port of Blyth has ordered an eco-efficient Konecranes Gottwald ESP.6 Mobile Harbor Crane for the newly refurbished Bates Clean Energy Terminal in the North East of England. “With a key focus on delivering an ambitious
decarbonisation strategy, we are keen to put Konecranes’ renowned and innovative eco-efficient electric drives to good use. Our recently modernised quay at our Bates Clean Energy Terminal now has mains access, so the crane can operate fully on electricity.,” says port director Alan Todd. The Generation 6 Konecranes Gottwald Mobile Harbor
Crane is equipped with an external power supply. Thanks to its electrical design concept, efficiency increases when connected to the harbor mains. A smart power management system recovers energy from braking and lowering movements which can then be re-used by other crane functions, or alternatively fed back into the harbor mains, as needed. The crane also has a state-of-the-art onboard diesel generator set to allow operation on nearby quays not yet connected to the mains.
to the site, then once they are there they start lifting things. There is no reason that the best electric solution for travel is also the best solution for the lifting mode. “The second special factor for cranes is that they lift loads – which takes energy - and they also lower them, which gives energy back; and that regenerated energy can be fed back into a battery to be stored and re-used. So for a crane a battery is a good option for the ‘at work ’ mode; but whether it should be the sole source is an open question. Fuel-cells may be better for transport; but if someone said ‘We are going to make a crane and it’s only going to use fuel cells’ I would be very surprised. “Getting an all-terrain crane
rolling on a road takes a huge amount of power. Once it is going you've not got a problem but getting it going is always going to be the biggest challenge. People are looking at what is called solid state batteries, which allow higher energy density. If that happens it will be a step change. But until then I would expect to see hybrid cranes - hybrid as in two different types of electrical storage. “There could even be more
electrical techniques. So-called ‘supercapacitors’ store energy but release it very quickly. You might think of those for tasks that involves snatch lifting. So we are in quite an exciting space from an engineer’s perspective.” That is all good theory; but how
does a lifting company set about turning itself green in practice? Take an example from Mammoet. The company carries out the sort of very-heavy lifts where you think diesel must be the only choice, so how is it going green? First, it had to want to, and it was ahead of the field in this. “There were lots of people in the company who were passionate about wanting to do something, wanting to make a difference,” says Erica Gray, who is global sustainability manager at Mammoet.
The company waned to integrate
all its efforts, to come up with a unified strategy and plan and they appointed Gray to do just that. “When I started I was literally mapping what was going on; which was a lot, but it was all taking place in isolated pockets. So we did a sustainability assessment. It is quite common within business now and is something Mammoet felt we f
38 CRANES TODAY
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