Energy monitoring is part of automation

Operators are under pressure to reduce energy consumption and refrigerated containers (reefers), which are often managed by an automated system, consume around 50% of energy at ports. This needs to be reduced to reduce costs, improve efficiency and green operations, said Stephan Piworus.

He said: “Most terminals just pay for the peak power so if you reduce the peak power, which you can do with an energy management system, you can lower the prices for energy consumption.”

Smart energy

Mr Piworus added that refrigerated cold storage warehouses already take energy back at night and deliver during the daytime. “Every reefer’s like a little cell so if you can manage it in an intelligent way you can save a lot of energy.”

Energy monitoring is a new feature of Identec’s CTAS refrigerated container module, a remote reefer monitoring and control system for cool container management within container terminals.

The energy monitoring feature means that energy consumption can be measured. Temperature tracking and accountability are available as if a container is delivered at the wrong temperature the recipient can cool it down and prove this via the module.

Indentec are keen to move forward with developing energy management solutions, which it sees as going hand in hand with automation.

Mr Piworus stressed: “Reefer remote monitoring is still one very important puzzle which fully automated terminals don’t have and they still have people checking the temperature of the reefers, so especially there I see the need for fully automated terminals.”