The company bid farewell to the last diesel automated guided vehicle (AGV), meaning that its 95-strong AGV fleet is all but battery-powered now and running on green electricity.

As a result, the container handling from ship to storage is fully electrified at Container Terminal Altenwerder (CTA).

According to HHLA, exchanging diesel for battery AGVs will avoid the consumption of around three million litres of fossil fuel per year, sparing the environment some 8.0kt/year of CO2 emissions.

In August 2023, CTA again received TÜV NORD climate-neutral company certification. The 14 container gantry cranes for seaborne handling, the 52 portal cranes in the container block storage facility, and the four rail gantries are already powered by green electricity.

The use of battery-powered tractor units is currently being tested at CTA with the intention of completely electrifying the terminal's tractor fleet. "[...] We will also continue to invest in the electrification of the equipment of the other HHLA terminals in order to achieve climate-neutral operations across the Group by 2040," Oliver Dux, Director of Technology at HHLA, underlined.

The last processes at CTA that still result in CO2 emissions are offset with compensation certificates (supporting projects certified according to the Gold Standard of Voluntary Emission Reductions).

The conversion of the CTA AGV fleet was supported by Hamburg's Ministry for Environment, Climate, Energy and Agriculture using funds from the European Regional Development Fund.

Photo: HHLA/Thies Rätzke