Batteries make construction easier and more sustainable for Dutch Heijmans

Up until this year, music festivals was the main business area for Dutch GreenBattery. As corona has effectively put a stop to that, the company has found new customers in the construction field. Heijmans, a Dutch company with activities in real estate, construction & engineering and infrastructure, are now using batteries charged with renewable power instead of diesel generators.

"We want to work sustainably and always include potential savings on CO₂ emissions in our plans. The deployment of a GreenBattery on site is therefore a logical choice for us,” says Lars Sies, manager of the North West region at Heijmans.

For Han Huiskamp of GreenBattery, the collaboration with Heijmans is also part of a trend that is becoming increasingly visible.

"We started out in the festival world, but we notice that the use of batteries in other locations, such as construction sites and road works, is becoming more and more common. We supply sustainable energy in places where there is no network. Where normally noisy diesel generators provide the necessary energy, the use of GreenBattery is clean and quiet. Employees and local residents benefit from this. And we charge the batteries in advance with green power from sun and wind from the Netherlands.”

Low-threshold solutions

Heijmans came up with the idea of working with GreenBattery during the writing of a tender for a project. This project involves small-scale maintenance of the asphalt in the paving.

"The batteries were ideal for the electricity needed in the construction site, for hand tools and for electric shovels. We were looking for a low-threshold, proven and reliable solution, and partners, and ended up with GreenBattery and Vattenfall. We like to work with parties who continue to innovate just like us and who also offer us the certainty that we can get the job done together," says Lars Sies.

Fast Switching

For the Amsterdam asphalt project Heijmans also use a smaller battery trailer at two locations. Executioner Martijn Schoorl is more than satisfied with the energy sources:

"The power for the lighting, the coffee machine and the printer in our construction site now comes from the GreenBattery trailer and that works very pleasantly. We do not have to worry about it, we do not smell diesel anymore and the battery is very quiet. It is also very nice that we can quickly make the right arrangements. Where you can spend up to six months working on permits for electricity, we can now switch very quickly if necessary".

Making a difference

When the GreenBattery is fully charged with green energy from sun and wind, it provides enough energy to power the building site for about two months. That is a CO₂ reduction of more than 80 percent compared to, for example, a diesel generator. If you add that to the electric means of transport that Heijmans’ employees also use, it’s a good step towards working fossil-free. "Parking in Amsterdam takes time and is very expensive, so we use our electric bicycles or our electric scooter as much as possible when we need to get from A to B," says Martijn Schoorl. "Together we can make a difference this way."