Climate-neutral transport services support the automobile supplier’s environment strategy
Bocholt / Saarbrücken, 11 March 2024 – Duvenbeck, the logistics company, is putting its faith in the renewable and climate-friendly fuel, biomethane (biogas), at its business site in Saarbrücken when providing services for the automobile supplier, ZF. In addition to switching the inter-factory traffic to battery-powered trucks for short distances, the company is introducing a source of energy, which is obtained from renewable sources such as agricultural waste, for its long-distance services. The biogas to be used is supplied by ‘ViGo bioenergy’ from certified organic waste processes. The switch involves 40 vehicles. As a result, the company will be able to reduce its CO2 emissions by up to 8,000 tonnes per annum.
“We’re now reaping the benefit from having switched our fleet at our business site in Saarbrücken to liquid gas – so-called liquefied natural gas or LNG – from 2019 onwards – because tractor units, which use fossil LNG fuel, can process cryogenically liquefied biomethane without any problems – and without any additional technical effort or expenditure either,” says Thomas Balcer, the Duvenbeck Branch Manager in Saarbrücken, explaining the process. By switching to biogas, Duvenbeck is achieving a significant reduction in its emissions that damage the climate. If it was possible to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 percent by using fossil LNG in comparison with traditional diesel fuel, reductions of up to 90 percent are possible for CO2 and nitrogen oxide levels and almost 100 percent for sulphur dioxide and particulate matter if biogas is used in the vehicles’ tanks. And there is another positive effect too: trucks powered by biogas are only about half as loud as those running on diesel fuel.
“Our declared aim is to operate in a climate-neutral manner by 2040 and this specifically includes transport operations upstream and downstream. As a result, the reductions in emissions being achieved by our logistics partner, Duvenbeck, directly support the implementation of our environmental goals,” says Florian Birkenkamp, the Commodity Buyer Freight Purchasing Transport Europe at the ZF Group, explaining this development.
The technology company manufactures automatic gearboxes for cars at its factory in Saarbrücken, which is one of ZF’s largest production sites. The factory is currently gearing up for the future production of drive systems for purely electrically-power vehicles. As far as the internal factory traffic at ZF is concerned, Duvenbeck has been responsible for one part of the just-in-time production supplies for the past four years.
Duvenbeck trucks powered by LNG: the logistics specialist is switching to biogas for all the 40 heavy-duty trucks used for long-distance services for ZF Saarbrücken (photo: Duvenbeck)
Florian Birkenkamp, the Commodity Buyer Freight Purchasing Transport Europe at the ZF Group (photo: ZF Group)
Thomas Balcer, the Duvenbeck Branch Manager in Saarbrücken (photo: Duvenbeck)