Konecranes’ electric avenue

By 2026, Konecranes will have electric versions of its entire range of lift trucks available for sale and will have introduced further smart and secure solutions into their designs, thus ensuring improved operating efficiencies and robust performances.

In an exclusive interview with WorldCargo News, Bertrand Marion, Director Business Development IT & Digitalization at Konecranes Lift Trucks, outlined the company’s electrification strategy for its lift trucks and the challenges faced by manufacturers and ports/terminals in shifting from using diesel to electric machines.

“It requires a change in thinking and this can be a challenge in industries such as ports/terminals and adaptability is required on both sides,” he said. “Infrastructure has to be changed to create charging stations, and planning and yard operations often adjusted to suit the new equipment and its charging needs. Electric machines are also more expensive to buy than conventional ones. Our experience has shown that flexibility is needed on all fronts with several customers preferring to lease machines and test them before committing to longer-term purchasing programmes.”

He explained that in many cases it took only one or two months of trials before the advantages of using electric trucks were realised and “firm and often large orders were placed”.

Marion pointed to the example of Kemi Shipping Oy, now trading as (Kemi Port Operations). The company tested a single truck for a few months in 2022 and then placed an order for eight E-VER 16-1200 C models, all featuring Konecranes’ TRUCONNECT Remote Monitoring solution to optimise performance levels and maximise battery life. The machines were delivered in H1 2023 and are deployed at the port of Kemi in northern Finland, handling mainly forest products and paper.

Concept

Konecranes launched its first electric lift truck in 2020 and the group ‘is wedded’ to the concept having pioneered batteries on AGVs and more recently on heavy mobile cranes, including RTGs and MHCs. But while hydrogen fuel cells have been dismissed for its lift trucks, the concept is still in consideration for other equipment in the Konecranes’ portfolio. 

“We are fully committed to electric and to using lithium-ion batteries as we view them as the most competitive, safest and best fit for our range of trucks,” he said. “Lithium-ion batteries exhibit significantly higher energy density than lead-acid batteries and this means that more energy (thus longer operating range) can be stored in the same physical space.”

He added: “Lithium-ion batteries also have a higher charging capacity and longer lifetime compared to lead-acid batteries. It means that even though lead-acid batteries are generally less expensive to buy, their total cost of ownership (TCO) is higher than that for lithium-ion ones”

“To uphold our own commitment to sustainability we buy batteries from a company in Sweden that specialises in the production of battery packs for automotive and industrial applications, uses green energy in their production and recycles scrapped batteries.”

Sustainability is the focus of Konecranes’ Ecolifting initiative, described by the company as a “systematic movement” towards lower CO2 emissions per container moved. It embodies the group’s mission to reduce GHG emissions by 50% (based on 2019 levels) by 2030 across its entire supply chain (both scope 1 & 2) and value chain (scope 3) to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 °C as agreed at the 2015 Paris climate summit.

In terms of operating efficiency, Konecranes’ TRUCONNECT telematics Remote Monitoring solution is important. While a basic version, which provides safety alerts, running hours, fuel consumption, tank levels, battery charge status and information related to maintenance planning and servicing, is installed on all machines, premium and premium+ packages are available for more sophisticated diagnostics and analysis.

Konecranes also uses the remote-monitoring data gathered by customers and its own field-service technicians to plan maintenance schedules and parts replacement programmes. It means maintenance and repair intervals can be planned in advance and more effectively matched with customers’ operational needs. In both cases, downtimes and decommissioning of equipment can be reduced.

“Our focus is to increase safety, improve sustainability, boost operational efficiency and raising productivity,” said Marion. He referred to Konecranes’ future of lift trucks as “mobile phones on wheels” and for good reason. With incidents of cyber-crime rising, customers are increasingly worried about data breaches leading to machines being compromised and operations having to be stopped. Konecranes has adopted a holistic approach to the situation by combining its traditional security arrangements for the physical equipment and its cyber-security measures in the software environment.

Cyber-security

The group ensures that cyber-security and related requirements are part of the product’s development process with Konecranes’ Information Communications Technology teams following secure software development practices. “We embrace the ‘security by design‘ principle, which is a fundamental principle in software engineering that emphasises building secure systems from the outset,” explained Marion. “Its key aspects include functional safety and foundational security, robust architectures and layered approach, expecting attacks and mitigate impact. Security by design integrates security considerations into every aspect of system development, promoting robustness and privacy from the outset.”

Konecranes complies with both ISO/IEC 27001 and IEC 62443, standards that cover the implementation of Information Security Management Systems for organisations and electronically secure Industrial Automation and Control Systems for products, respectively.

The company’s IoT platforms (both yourKONECRANES Digital eXperience platform (DXP) and Machine Data Platform (MDP) including TRUCONNECT telematics solution) were first certified in May 2021 against ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and this certification was renewed earlier this year against ISO/IEC 27001:2022.

A concern of operators is the operational resilience of electric trucks when it comes to working shifts and how charging of the batteries should be built into operating regimes. “Our goal”, stressed Marion “is for our equipment to operate a full shift without charging being needed and where it might be required for this to be completed in 45 minutes, such as during an operator’s lunch break.”

Charging challenges

He thinks charging issues should not be a major concern of operators. Marion pointed to research undertaken by the company that indicated that for between 20% and 40% of an operating shift lift trucks were often idle and using only very limited amounts of energy. Meanwhile, with many lift trucks travelling only short distances and regularly braking, significant amounts of energy are pumped back into the battery.

The executive also stressed that with battery technologies developing at what he referred to as exponential rates of growth, both energy densities and battery capacities are being increased. “The net result is longer machine operating times,” said Marion.

While he thinks an increasing number of terminal operators will switch to using electric lift trucks, he also thinks the pace of this transition process will be determined by the speed with which terminal operators adapt and adopt to the new technologies.

“It’s hugely important that operators understand and take into account the total cost of ownership as all too often it comes back to capex and the cost of the machines is definitely much higher,” he said. “But with fewer mechanical components and common electrical modules, electrics are easier to maintain. They also offer a superior driving experience and have higher lifecycle and second-hand resale values.”

Partly to address the price differentials, Konecranes offers a ‘Battery as a Service’ (BaaS) to customers of its medium (10 to 17t) and heavy lift (over 18t) series of trucks. Those opting for the service buy the electrical lift truck fitted with their requested battery capacity, but with the cost of the battery excluded from the price of the truck. This cost is charged on a BaaS basis through a ‘pay per use model’.

Marion said that BaaS was important as it addressed many of the concerns customers had about electric machines, specifically regarding the condition of the battery, the ability to upgrade a battery and resale value of the machine. However, Konecranes has not revealed how many customers take advantage of its BaaS which was launched at the end of 2021.

But what is changing is the decision-making process when it comes to buying electric equipment. Marion sees more ‘top down’ decisions being taken by senior management as part of corporate ESG strategies and pressure from their customers, suppliers and stakeholders to manage more sustainable businesses.
 

 

This article was written by John Fossey at World Cargo News and published in their March 2024 magazine edition.