Heavy duty material handler marks next step in EMR’s ‘decade of action’

European Metals Recycling has unveiled its first electrically enabled material handler in the UK at Liverpool’s Alexandra Docks, paving the way for the site to switch wholly to renewable power by 2040.

Weighing 400 tonnes, the Sennebogen 895e Hybrid can lift up to 15 tonnes of scrap with a single grab and is claimed to deliver an increase in energy efficiency of up to 55%. ‘This comes partly from energy recovery on the down movement of the grab and partly from its higher loading rates,’ says EMR.

Waiting for power cable

The material handler uses electric drive motors, linked to a diesel generator. When the quaysides at the Liverpool yard is cabled with a permanent power supply, the machine will be able to switch to renewable power and operate without the use of fossil fuels.

EMR already operates three Sennebogen 880 hybrid material handlers, each weighing 280 tonnes, at Amsterdam in the Netherlands.

Covid-19 delay

The EUR 2.5 million investment at Liverpool, one of EMR’s UK flagship sites, is part of a sustainability strategy ‘Our Decade of Action’ which anticipates all EMR sites globally becoming operationally net-zero by 2030. Installation of the material handler was completed in late January after a delay due to the UK’s Covid-19 restrictions.

Global rollout

The EMR team will now spend the next few months conducting performance analysis as well as time and motion studies of the plant before potentially rolling it out across EMR’s biggest sites in the UK, EU and US.