Efficiency award for lift table

Tsubaki has been awarded the highest honour in the Energy Conservation Prize awards programme sponsored by the Japan Machinery Federation. The company's innovative Zip Chain Lifter won the METI Minister's Award in recognition of the product's energy savings, ingenuity and economic efficiency. The Zip Chain Lifter is a lift table that utilises a zip chain that can be pushed and pulled. Electrically driven, the lifting mechanism delivers twice the energy efficiency of conventional hydraulic lifters and is about 28% more energy efficient in terms of transmission efficiency than systems which push pantograph arms diagonally upwards. It also features a regeneration unit that returns energy produced by the descending platform to the primary power system, allowing the lifter to recover as much as 30% of electricity consumption. With these innovations the design precisely met the requirements of the Energy Conservation Awards, which were introduced in 1980 specifically to promote energy efficiency. Awards are presented to individuals or companies recognised as having contributed to the promotion of efficient energy use through the development and commercialisation of energy-efficient equipment or systems.