Spanish terminal operator, Noatum, was at TOC Europe this year, to give the lowdown on its experiment on the use of LNG in terminal tractors at Valencia.
According to Francisco Blanquer Jaraiz, engineering & development, Noatum Ports, it’s the first time that LNG tractors have been tested in a real port environment.
The initiative involved comparing the use of an LNG tractor against a brand new diesel stage IV engine tractor to decide which way to go in order to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions at the terminal.
“The initiative included the use of a mobile LNG station at the terminal to refuel the tractors and intense training for the stevedores. The training was the most important part of the project. People are wary about the use of LNG. What was meant to take two hours ended up taking two weeks,” Mr Jaraiz said.
The project ran for 1,000 hours and Mr Jaraiz said that the LNG tractor proved to be just as reliable as the top of the range diesel engine and produced far less emissions and noise.
Mr Jairez told delegates that although LNG looks set to be a good solution for the next 20 years, the main challenge now was the lack of legislation to establish the safe use of mobile LNG stations in ports.
But while LNG is a good short term solution, he also pointed out that the long term solution will be in electric engines. To this end, Noatum will be working with Terberg towards testing an electrical truck engine at the terminal in the future.
The project was part of the Greencranes project started in August 2012 with the support of the European Union through its Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) programme.
