BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS Ӏ SECTOR SNAPSHOT
your fuel costs on welfare but the amount of savings you can make is much higher on a tower crane. “We know what diesel
generators are like for loads with large peaks, such as tower cranes, whereas loads for welfare are more smooth and consistent, such as offices turning on lights when it gets dark, rather than a high-drain short-duration lifting load. The benefits of BESS there are still well worth making, but they are not so extreme as for cranes.”
MAXIMISING GAINS And there are techniques for maximising the gains that BESS can bring. Two or more cranes, for
example, can be run from a single BESS. “For that, though, you might want the cranes to be physically close together,” says Long. “Power cables snaking over the site between them could be a hazard. It also might require coordinating their draws on power so that both are not lifting at the same time.” Optimal use of BESS, though,
involves not only cranes but time management and equipment management as well. This is because different bits of kit have different requirements spread over different periods of the day and night.
Dumarey’s
battery energy storage system could bring fuel and cost savings
“Where you get best value from
a battery is in powering a crane together with a more predictable load – say an office, with lights and heating, or a welfare cabin,” explains Long. “That would be an effective use of the battery and you would create a lot of value. “Or you could pair your crane with an electric vehicle. That way you can plan your operations so that you're always within the battery’s capability. The excavator charges at night, because that's when it's not being used. The crane would have no demands then because it is only used in the day. Then you have a battery that is storing and providing energy 24 hours each day. That, I think, would be a very sensible use of these batteries. “We have a saying in Zenobē:
‘Buying a battery and using it for just one application is like buying a Swiss army knife and using it just as a spoon.’ You need to look at all the different things batteries can do at different points of the day to get the most value out of it. It is, after all, a bit of kit, which is relatively costly when you compare it to traditional technology. Make sure that you are making use of all that additional value. That is the key to making sure that you're not decarbonising at a cost.”
When properly used,
contractors can save money on decarbonization through BESS, especially as batteries have become much more available, and much cheaper, in recent years. This is partly due to better technology, partly to high volume production, and partly due to slower-than- expected take-up elsewhere.
SECOND-LIFE BATTERIES “We started our business using second-life batteries from buses,” explains Long. “They could no longer deliver the eight hours of continuous power that buses need but could still give reliable peak bursts of the kind that cranes require. But we wanted to grow our fleet because we had more demand, so now we use either new batteries or what we call ‘second chance’ batteries, which are electric vehicle batteries that never went to the destinations they were intended for. “In Europe EV car sales
didn't increase at the rate they were forecast to last year so the batteries that were ordered and made for them are available as surplus. We are benefiting from that surplus because we are now powering cranes with them. The value that we add is by using our intelligence to deploy the right
18 CRANES TODAY
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