Swedish companies Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) and Skanska, a Swedish-based construction company, are creating the world’s first ‘emission-free’ quarry. Drawing on the electromobility and automation expertise of the Volvo Group, the research project, dubbed Electric Site, aims to electrify each transport stage in a quarry – from excavation to primary crushing, and transport to secondary crushing – although a negligible amount of diesel power will still be used.
Volvo CE and Skanska began testing the ‘Electric Site’ concept on 29th August at Skanska’s Vikan Kross quarry near Gothenburg in Sweden, which produces aggregates for construction purposes as well as for asphalt and cement. The system, which incorporates electric and autonomous Volvo machines, will run in a real production environment for 10 weeks – delivering an anticipated 95 percent reduction in carbon emissions and 25 percent reduction in total cost of operations. The Electric Site project has involved developing new concept machines, work methods and site management systems which together, form a complete site solution. New technology encompasses machine and fleet control systems and logistic solutions for electric machines in quarries.
Gunnar Hagman, CEO of Skanska Sweden said, “This is the first time that anything like this has been attempted in the quarrying industry and, if successful, Electric Site could serve as a blueprint for transforming the efficiency, safety and environmental impact of quarries around the world.”.
Melker Jernberg, president of Volvo CE, said, “The total site solution we developed together with our customer Skanska is not a commercial solution for sale today and we will evaluate the outcome of the tests but we have learnt so much already, elements of which will be fed into our future product development.”
With Electric Site, Volvo CE and Skanska are challenging traditional ways of working in the quarrying industry.