LITTLE BIG TRANSITIONS: ELECTRICAL CONSTRUCTION MACHINES ON SMALL SITES

Paper i 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 wheel-loader 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.