Companies around the world are looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact. We at Konecranes are committed to providing our customers with eco-efficient solutions, products and services.
As part of our continuous effort to reduce the carbon footprint of your everyday operations, we can offer you a variety of power options to decrease carbon emissions. How? By making products that are incredibly energy efficient and providing you with the best technology to lower the volume of carbon emitted during your lifting operations. One simple power option is the start-stop function, which stops the engine when idling and starts it again when movement is needed.
Konecranes Ecolifting offers more complete solutions, but what exactly is Ecolifting? It's a Konecranes initiative intended to reduce the energy consumption and the overall carbon footprint of our lift trucks. By reducing the environmental impact of each lift truck we manufacture and offering you a variety of power options, we mitigate the effect of our own operations while helping you to decrease carbon emissions when you use the truck.
“Ecolifting is the commitment for Konecranes Lift Trucks to support the market and customer through the future decades of transition with environmental, sustainability, technology, and operational change,” says Jeffrey Stokes, Director Product Management, Konecranes Lift Trucks. “It’s clear that the next decade will see a significant shift in many aspects of our business and market, to which new innovative ideas combined with new technologies will be a key enabler.”
Ecolifting is also evolving, and it can naturally do so because of the modular product platform Konecranes Lift Trucks has established. This is the one of the most important ground rules for Product Management to ensure agile development and rapid system integration.
“The commitment and purpose of Ecolifting remains unchanged; provide total cost of ownership (TCO) saving solutions whilst making better choices for the environment by using less fossil fuels and improving performance,” adds Jeffrey.
In other words, Ecolifting gives you the chance to save money and make better choices for the environment by using less fossil fuels, without compromising performance.
One of those solutions is the award-winning Konecranes electric forklift E-VER, which combines our durable, heavy-duty lifting machinery with an all-electric drivetrain and the latest eco-efficient features to help you improve productivity while reducing your energy consumption, emissions and costs.
“Today the focus is primarily on Tank-to-Wheel (TTW) rather than Well-to-Tank (WTT) when discussing about electric energy and batteries. We believe the focus should of course be on the Well-to-Tank. One thing very much forgotten today, is the footprint of producing batteries. Our award winning fully electric forklifts are equipped with the world’s greenest cells with an 80% lower carbon footprint in benchmark comparison,” says Patrik Lundbäck, Vice President, Sales and Distribution, Konecranes Lift Trucks. “On the sales side we understood there will be a great interest in our E-VER forklift, but I must admit that the interest is greater than we expected and the reception from our customers been nothing but great.”
Since a pure electric forklift needs no fossil fuels at all, the E-VER can decrease energy consumption by up to 70%. It does this through a lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery that powers a 110 kW electric drive motor and an 80 kW motor for hydraulics and lifting. One of the benefits of using a Li-ion battery is that it charges quickly, taking only 45 minutes for a full charge, giving another 4-6 hours of operation. In addition, no exhaust fumes means that the truck releases zero carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere.
In addition, in December 2021, Konecranes launched Battery as a Service (BaaS), a breakthrough technology and business model. We now provide chargeable, upgradable and remotely monitorable Li-ion batteries to our BaaS users. So, you can purchase an E-VER electric forklift without a battery and choose the best battery arrangement for your needs.
“We understand there is a concern from the market as electric heavy-duty forklifts are relatively new to the market and actually, we are the first in the world with Li-ion battery technology for Heavy duty forklifts. With Batteries as a Service we remove that concern and the risk from our customers mind, but providing all the benefits of an fully electric forklift.” adds Patrik.
With zero fossil fuels, zero emissions from the truck and much lower noise than a conventional diesel truck, the Konecranes E-VER combines the quality, power and productivity of conventional Konecranes forklifts with the latest eco-efficient technology.
If you're not ready to go fully electric yet, we have two other Ecolifting solutions: Power Drive and Flow Drive.
Power Drive is the most cost-effective way to start reducing emissions and fuel expenses. It delivers the same power as a conventional driveline, but with 15-25% less fuel (depending on its operating environment), and also makes less noise. To achieve this, we added a new, unique hydraulic system configuration and customized pump setup, optimized the driveline, and added a transmission with a lockup function to ensure that fuel consumption goes down while performance stays the same.
You can get Power Drive on all Konecranes lift truck models, whether they are reach stackers, forklifts, or empty/laden container handlers.
Flow Drive is our third Ecolifting solution. It combines a driver-friendly ride with a significant reduction in fuel consumption and emissions together with a heavy-duty engine that maintains full performance. Flow Drive uses a continuously variable transmission so that the downsized diesel engine operates only where it’s most fuel efficient, saving you up to 25% on fuel.
With Flow Drive, not only do you cut your fuel consumption, but you also improve driver comfort and it increases the truck's active operating time. It's a solution that brings concrete benefits to everyday operations and an increase in overall productivity. To get the most out of Flow Drive, Konecranes provides driver training and service support.
The technology behind our trucks is just one part of our ongoing effort to reduce our environmental impact. Customers today also demand equipment that uses renewable fuels. So we have been testing the use of HVO100 fossil-free fuel in our conventional diesel lift trucks.
HVO100 is a 100% renewable and fossil-free chemical copy of regular diesel made mostly of vegetable oils combined with waste and residue fat, a recipe that can reduce fossil-based CO2 emissions by up to 90%. Almost the same as regular diesel, renewable HVO100 can be used in most diesel engines without further modification.
“By giving them the opportunity to use HVO100 in our diesel trucks, our customers can greatly reduce CO2 emissions during their operations. This is another positive way we can take responsibility in reducing our environmental impact as a manufacturer of heavy vehicles,” says Zandra Wallin, Environment Health and Safety Manager, Konecranes Lift Trucks. “At the beginning of 2021, we signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which means we need to actively drive measures and projects that restrict global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C. We are working hard every day to find new sustainable improvements that meet both the SBTi limit and the increasing demands of the world. Our trucks' ability to use HVO100 and our new E-VER forklift prove that our our product development is advancing steadily in an environmentally responsible direction. “
In the fourth quarter of 2020, Konecranes started testing HVO100 in selected lift trucks at its Markaryd factory in southern Sweden and found that the fuel works as efficiently as regular diesel in the new equipment, with no engine modifications needed. This means that HVO100 can be used in all Generation C lift trucks, the latest Konecranes models available on the market, representing around 40% of the company’s fleet operating globally.
“There are a few different types of HVO100, but in Markaryd we’ve only used the version without palm oil or Palm Fatty Acid Distillate (PFAD),” adds Zandra.
Nowadays, almost 100% of the Konecranes machines produced in Markaryd run on this fuel. We estimate that the reduction in tailpipe CO2 emissions from HVO100-fueled trucks both produced and used by Konecranes will be over 300 tons per year – equivalent to 100 passenger cars driving 15,000 kilometres (9,320.57 miles) annually.
A strong focus on customers and a commitment to business growth and continuous improvement make Konecranes a lifting industry leader. This is underpinned by investments in digitalization and technology, and the drive to make lifting and material flows more productive and sustainable. Konecranes works for a decarbonized and circular world for customers and society at large.
Thanks to all these improvements, Konecranes Lift Trucks offer customers many ways to reduce their environmental impact while maintaining full performance and providing an excellent driving experience.
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