Volvo CE, Skanska demonstrate concept electric site

Volvo Construction Equipment and Swedish construction and mining company Skanska have recorded impressive initial results from an electric quarry research project. The two companies, working in partnership with the Swedish Energy Agency and two local universities, established an electric site within Skanska's Vikan Kross Quarry, near Gothenburg in Sweden.

The concept site has been using a diesel electric hybrid wheeled loader, a cable-electric crawler excavator and crushing equipment, plus eight battery-powered autonomous haulers to quarry and transport blasted rock from the quarry face. In normal operation, the site requires a 70-tonne (77-ton) crawler excavator, a diesel-driven mobile crusher, a 50-tonne (55-ton) wheeled loader and three 50-tonne capacity rigid dump trucks to move around 700 tonnes (770-tons) of blasted rock per hour within the quarry. Between them, these machines consume around 3,000 L (792 gal) of diesel in a working day.