Terminal operator Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) at the Port of Oakland said that the project will ultimately eliminate about 1,200 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually from each crane.
“Retrofitting our rubber-tyre gantry cranes to battery power produced remarkable results,” said crane manager Ken Larson, at SSA Marine’s Oakland International Container Terminal (OICT). “We’re impressed with the huge drop in emissions from equipment that we regularly use on the marine terminal.”
Terminal first
SSA said that the clean air project will result in a 93% reduction in diesel fuel. The older engines used 10 to 13 gallons of diesel fuel an hour whereas the hybrids use about three-quarters of a gallon an hour, said Mr Larson.
The hybrid retrofit is the first project of its type at SSA terminals. SSA replaced 1,000-horsepower diesel generators on its yard cranes with 142-horsepower diesel hybrids courtesy of a USD$5 million grant from as the Air District’s Community Health Protection Program (CHP – AB134).
Mr Larson said that the project was challenging, including the construction of new electrical systems for input power protection when converting current from AC to DC on a crane.
Besides saving fuel and reducing emissions, the hybrid performs better than the older diesel generators because there is no delay in power delivery to the crane.