WILL GOVERNMENTS START MANDATIND FOR NON-DIESEL-POWERED EQUIPMENT?

As the UK considers a new strategy for decarbonising construction equipment, could other governments start mandating for machines powered by alternative fuels? Neil Gerrard investigates

Volvo CE has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of electric powered equipment

PHOTO: VOLVO CE

Change could be afoot when it comes to the UK government’s approach to construction equipment, and specifically how environmentally friendly that machinery is, leading to speculation that other governments around could follow a similar approach in the near future.

Diesel machines still dominate in the UK, as they do in every other major construction industry in the world. Sales of electric machines, while growing, make up a tiny proportion of the overall total. Other low-carbon technologies like hydrogencombustion engines, championed by the likes of JCB, are only just starting to advance beyond the prototype stage. However, it appears that the UK government wants to hasten the pace of change. Last year, it announced that it would publish a cross-government strategy to decarbonise non-road mobile machinery (NRMM), estimating that collectively they emit 11.4 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) per year. That is equivalent to 2.7% of all the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions.

JCB has invested in hydrogen – its hydrogen-powered backhoe loader is being tested on on UK roads

PHOTO: JCB

A new ‘call for evidence’ now gives manufacturers and users of NRMM until March to help inform that strategy.

The areas the call for evidence seeks information on include:

■ How NRMM is used across different sectors of the economy

■ What efficiency measures, process changes, and fuel switching technologies might be required to decarbonise NRMM

■ What issues may affect the development and deployment

■ Whether existing policies are sufficient to decarbonise NRMM in line with net zero

■ Whether the policy principles of the Industrial

A Bobcat E10e electric mini-excavator being used to excavate in Naples, Italy

PHOTO: BOBCAT

Decarbonisation Strategy should also apply in relation to determining whether there is a case for further government intervention to support NRMM decarbonisation.

Mix of technologies

Dale Camsell, senior technical consultant at the Construction Equipment Association (CEA), said that the call for evidence was “critically important”. The CEA is still developing its response to the call for evidence, but Camsell did confirm that the CEA would, “most certainly be providing a response because we see this as being hugely important.”

The senior technical consultant added that the challenge, rather than the technology, is providing viable, commercially available fuel for machines, whether electricity for recharging electric machines or hydrogen for use generators or directly in the machines themselves.

Camsell stressed that manufacturers envisage that internal combustion engines will continue to play a role in construction equipment for the foreseeable future and will take a significant portion of the market for decades to come. He added that it’s important that policymakers recognise that a mix of technologies, along with the necessary fuel supply infrastructure, will be needed to support the varied demands of construction equipment.

“These machines are a lot of investment for the purchasers. Any delays to a project caused by machines not having available fuel could come with heavy penalties so, unless there is an infrastructure of readily available commercially viable fuels, there is a risk in users switching to decarbonised machines. What we need is a holistic approach to decarbonisation. It can’t just be driven by manufacturers – we will manufacture what people want to buy,” he added.

He called on the government to establish its long-term decarbonisation policies, to provide certainty to manufacturers, buyers and users of equipment and suggested that, in the short term, specifying only decarbonised solutions on public projects to incentivise change could be the direction to head in.

Mats Bredborg, Volvo Construction Equipment’s head of customer cluster utility, also welcomed the call for evidence.

He pointed to the fact that efforts are already underway to encourage on-road low-emission and lowcarbon vehicles in cities like London, with its Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), mainly as a way to improve air quality. But the rules don’t apply to NRMM.

“The technologies are there and they are commercially available but we are just not using them,” he says. “The call for evidence is wider, but we already have a path that we are going down in the major cities [for on-road machines]…It makes sense that you take the next step and look at the construction industry.

“If you look at a city like London, there’s 25,000-30,000 compact excavators there alone. Half of those are likely to be going into utility work. Manufacturers have electrical equipment that can do this job, certainly at the smaller end, but people have to make that leap and the equipment is more expensive.

“It makes sense to have more consistency between on-road and off-road. This is a major change in the industry that will bring in new players, new money, and new investment. Even if our industry is conservative and traditional, it would be good for it to be shaken up a little bit and refreshed because we need to do things differently and we need to use different stakeholders to make this work.”

Companies such as Moog Construction are offering solutions to convert diesel powered equipment to electric

PHOTO: MOOG CONSTRUCTION

In a statement released by JCB following the publication of the call for evidence, the OEM’s chairman Lord Bamford called on the industry to embrace the opportunity.

He said, “The call for evidence is a crucial milestone that should be taken very seriously by everyone who is affected, from trade associations to owners and users of non-road mobile machinery.”

Call for consistency across borders

The UK’s focus on decarbonising construction equipment gives an indication of the approach governments in other nations across the world could start to take. However, as they begin to consider regulations governing the sector, Camsell stressed the need for consistency.

“It is really important that the countries work in some degree of unison,” he said. “We’re in a global market and the expense of investing in decarbonised machines is considerable. We need a holistic, global solution, rather than having to have specific machine types for different markets. This should not be dealt with by individual countries in isolation,” he added.

Volvo CE’s Bredborg also agreed that the rules across borders would need to be similar.

“There are 320 low emissions zones within Europe and that will grow to over 500 within three years,” he said. “So exactly the same kind of thing that the UK government is looking at now is being looked at by other cities and other governments, or will be looked at.

“It should be a bit like F1, where everything is possible within the rules. We need a box of rules that is very similar. I don’t think governments should interfere with the technology we deploy or the way we go about it. Whether it is hydrogen, electrification, or sustainable fuels, market forces will find the right and the most competitive solution within the framework that governments set up.”

IC