Volta Via is researching the electrification of road construction sites
The Volta Via research project examined how road construction sites can be electrified and what energy infrastructure is required for this purpose. One finding: For up to 86 percent of the machine categories studied, electrified models are already available.
A recharge requirement of 378 kW was calculated for intensive construction phases.
Image: Volta Via
The project was carried out by Zeppelin Rental in collaboration with the Production Engineering of E-Mobility Components (PEM) research group at RWTH Aachen from August 2024 to mid-2026. Participants included Autobahn GmbH, the Federal Road Administration (BASt), Austria’s ASFINAG, and Switzerland’s Federal Road Office ASTRA.
The study focused on aspects such as comprehensive renovation and surface repairs for asphalt and concrete road surfaces. For the years 2027, 2040, and 2050, the project partners developed reference scenarios regarding machine requirements, energy supply, and charging infrastructure. According to the final report, these scenarios must be adjusted accordingly for construction methods, machine configurations, construction timeframes, and local conditions.
According to the results, electric models are already available on the market for up to 86 percent of the required machine categories today. However, this does not mean complete technical equivalence to diesel machines. Limitations exist in areas such as continuous power output, operating time, charging requirements, and operational flexibility. The authors identify supply gaps mainly among material suppliers and formwork manufacturers.
Energy supply becomes the key issue
A model calculation for the electrification of highway repairs shows how large the additional electricity demand could be. With an assumed repair rate of four percent, Germany would face an additional electricity demand of around 34.7 GWh per year. This corresponds to approximately 0.0066 percent of Germany’s total electricity consumption. For the entire D-A-CH region, Volta Via estimates around 44 GWh per year.
According to the report, local availability of the required power is more critical than the total energy amount. For the most power-intensive phase of the analyzed reference scenario, a charging capacity of 378 kW is needed. Factors to consider include power grid connections, charging windows, storage systems, load management, and possible simultaneous charging operations.
It is clear that not all vehicles necessarily need to charge directly on the construction site. According to the study, road-legal dump trucks, tractor-trailers, mixers, and other material transport vehicles could also use depots, production and logistics locations, or public truck charging stations.
Other power supply solutions are needed for machinery used at construction sites. For large-scale projects that span multiple years, a project-specific medium-voltage connection may be appropriate. The report suggests temporary and mobile power systems for shorter-term or relocatable construction sites. Wired machinery can also be useful for stationary applications, allowing large battery storage to be avoided in some cases as long as a sufficiently powerful power connection is available.
Strabag demonstrated what such an approach might look like in practice in Oberhausen during the summer of 2026. When renovating a soil treatment plant, eleven fully electric construction machines were used there, including a 25-ton excavator, a loader, a truck crane, and a road construction machine. A mobile battery storage unit with 153 kWh was employed to power the machines and mitigate peak loads. However, the construction site was not entirely electric: for applications that could not be electrified and for logistics transportation, Strabag used HVO100 as a supplement.
Operating costs could decrease
Volta Via has also considered the operating costs of various scenarios. Assuming that available electricized machines are used consistently, ongoing costs could be reduced by slightly more than half compared to conventional methods by 2027. By 2050, they would drop to around one-eighth of current levels in this model.
The calculation does not take into account the purchase costs of the machines. It also assumes a constant industrial electricity price at 2025 levels. Whether electric construction machinery is actually cost-effective depends, according to the report, on factors such as utilization rate, operating hours, energy prices, infrastructure costs, residual values, and potential impacts on productivity and construction time.
The emission figures are also modeled potentials. Under the assumed optimal boundary conditions, Volta Via calculates that by 2027 greenhouse gas emissions will be about 80 percent lower compared to the conventional reference scenario. By 2050, this reduction potential rises to around 97 percent. The actual values depend on factors such as the source of electricity, machine availability, and the specific construction site.
Another focus of the project was the allocation of public construction projects. For this purpose, an electrification index was developed that takes into account drive technology, the number of machines, and their importance to the construction process. This is intended to prevent many small electrical devices from disproportionately improving results while key process steps continue to be carried out conventionally.
The index is intended primarily as a scoring criterion rather than an exclusion criterion. Bidders without fully electrified machinery fleets should not be excluded outright, but machines and supply concepts with lower emissions should receive a scoring advantage. As these become more available on the market, the index could later be given greater weight or be accompanied by minimum requirements.
Volta Via was funded as part of the D-A-CH Cooperation on Transport Infrastructure Research 2024. The funding partners are Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport, Austria’s Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility, and Infrastructure, and Switzerland’s Federal Office of Roads.