The container terminal at Khalifa Port in the UAE was officially commissioned in 2012. The expected capacity of the first phase of the terminal is 2.5 million TEU's per year and the terminal currently handles 2 million TEU's per year, with an additional 500,000 TEU's expected to be added upon the arrival and commissioning of three new giant container terminal cranes at the port. The second phase of the follow-on project will commence at the right time and when all civil engineering works are ready. From a port operations point of view, the handling capacity of the Phase I terminal is able to meet the needs of logistics development, and the future Phase II is expected to reach 5.5 million TEU/year in 2019-2020.
The terminal has conducted an in-depth study on how to optimize the yard and manage the container truck turnaround time, and the results are good from the current yard operation. The arrival time of container trucks has increased from 2-3 times per day to 5 times per day. Based on the common global vision of building a clean and environmentally friendly port and the consideration of future fossil energy depletion, the Port of Khalifa decided to introduce electric trucks for cargo turnaround starting in 2020.Eco Power provided a 614.4V206Ah/126.6KWh battery system for the first prototype. It is worth mentioning that the temperature in Khalifa Port is high all year round. Due to the long exposure to the sun, the temperature of the truck body can sometimes reach over 50°C. Therefore, a liquid cooling system is specially equipped for the battery system of the electric truck, which can ensure that the battery pack can continue to work properly even under high temperature conditions. The Port's electric trucks with Eco Power battery systems will be tested for eight months. If the test results are positive, the Port of Khalifa is expected to use electric trucks for in-port cargo transportation in large numbers from 2021.
