Little big transitions: electric construction machines in small sites

Paper in proceeding, 2022

Apart from grand projects (e.g., bridges) with large material and diesel-related emissions, civil engineering mostly comprises small and medium-sized projects (e.g., roundabouts, parks), where climate impact must also be mitigated. Because equipment manufacturers have been slow in providing electric machines (e.g., +/-2,5 tonnes electric excavators, wheel-loaders, etc.), which supports the transition to emission-free sites, the following enquiry appeared: which are the relevant barriers, enablers, benefits, and perspectives. This paper adopts an interdisciplinary operation management framework for a Swedish urban park project, where an electric wheelloader was used (study includes interviews, observations, energy measurements and assessment electric vs. diesel equivalent machines). Main findings show operators being modest in their expectations, electric machines performing as diesel-driven ones, and the difference in emissions being relatively significant. The considerable idle time indicated that a meta-level project portfolio planning would have huge potential - e.g., through involving machine rental companies in a sharing economy setup.