California emissions legislation accelerating technology development
One of the most important drivers of all-electric container handling is California ports’ legislation to reduce air pollution in port operations by moving towards zero-emissions through electrically powered technologies.
Kalmar president Antti Kaunonen said the company will continue to drive the eco-efficiency of cargo and material handling through new solutions, with global manufacturers moving fast to meet the growing demand for all-electric cargo handling equipment to keep pace with the Long Beach and Los Angeles ports’ Clean Air Action Plan.
Companies willing to take a leadership role in developing eco-efficient solutions will have great possibilities ahead of them, stated Mr Kaunonen. “The drive towards electrically powered equipment opens up some very exciting avenues for development.
“In addition to newly built machines, we are beginning to see upgrade paths from diesel to zero-emissions technologies in existing equipment, similarly to what we can already accomplish with RTG cranes.”
Fuel cells
He said it was important to note the ongoing development of fuel cells, whether fuel cells will eventually gain ground over other solutions, and whether there be just one dominant or several energy sources coexisting as part of a larger eco-efficient logistics infrastructure.
Kalmar believes the future is “all electric stressed Mr Kaunonen. He said: “At Kalmar, we have a huge opportunity to help our industry improve the operational efficiency of cargo handling and we are building our eco-efficiency offering around three themes – systems efficiency, energy efficiency and resource efficiency.”
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