Green logistics with energy recovery for automated warehouses

Egemin Automation, supplier of automation projects for logistics and production processes, is now offering external energy recovery for automated warehouse systems. The residual energy of stacker cranes is fed back into the mains supply and used for other processes. This means that savings in stacker crane consumption of up to 20% can be achieved.

Egemin is increasingly offering this new function as an option for its new warehouse projects. The transformer, which makes energy recovery possible, is located on the control panel of pallet cranes, miniload cranes and aisle-switching cranes. When a stacker crane brakes or lowers, the residual energy is first used to continue an internal action. When the residual energy cannot be used any more, the transformer feeds it into its own mains supply to be used for other processes.

Internal energy recovery
An internal energy recovery system, when residual energy is used for another crane movement, has been a standard feature of Egemin products for years. Through the skillful control of the crane axes, the braking energy is released at the right moment for other movements of the crane, such as driving and lifting. For example, as an energy-saving measure, we can only allow the crane to lift when it starts to brake. In addition, the cranes can also be started with a small delay to avoid major consumption peaks.

Essential cost savings
Herbert Kennis, E’wds product manager at Egemin Automation: “Companies are becoming increasingly aware that efficient cost and energy savings are essential for their business. Energy recovery in the warehouse is therefore an ideal way for many companies to ratchet up their ability to compete.” “External energy recovery can save up to 20% of the energy consumption of warehouse installations and we offer the right support for this. We have in-house energy specialists who help to improve the energy efficiency of the complete production infrastructure, such as logistic installations, production machines and buildings. In the case of fully automated warehouses without climate control, the installations are the biggest energy consumers. So they need to guarantee the greatest energy recovery and efficiency.” Indirect energy savings in the warehouse

Apart from the direct reductions in crane consumption, energy recovery can also lead to additional savings in heating, ventilation and air conditioning consumption, for example through reduced heat generation of braking resistors and also in the dimensioning of hardware components, such as transformers.

Energy Forum
Egemin Automation recently completed an external energy recovery project at SAPA. The recent project for the automated refrigerated warehouse at Agristo involved internal energy recovery. Egemin will be exhibiting with REstore at the Energy Forum at Brussels Expo on 14 and 15 November.

www.egemin.com