We pay a visit to engineer Thijs van Grunsven, who has been working for van Gebr for three years now. Van den Brand and van Oort BV (GBO) from Uden. Thijs is one of the operators in the consortium 'De Bouwplaats van Morgen', where GBO and seven others invested in a DX165W Electric mobile excavator. GBO is a reliable partner in earthmoving, but is also active in the field of demolition, rubble recycling, sand extraction and transport. A versatile family business that attaches great importance to quality, reliability, craftsmanship and flexibility. In order to be able to meet every challenge, GBO has a solid machine park, including various Doosan excavators.
Lately Thijs has been busy with his electric excavator. Of course we want to know everything about his first experiences and what it's like to make the switch to electric. “For me, the machine runs faster so far than the other Doosan I've run with and I think that's positive. We even tested it. We also have a Doosan DX170W-5 mobile excavator at the company and it really works faster compared to that machine. That was cool to experience. What I do encounter as a train driver is that if I have to work somewhere, the necessary charging infrastructure is not always properly and safely arranged. So it is not necessarily a big challenge for the machine because it does its job, but more so the facilities around it, says Thijs. Thijs changes it very quickly. ''I didn't have to do anything, they asked me if I wanted to try it and yes, I actually thought it was very nice to try. I'm still quite young myself, so I think I could easily make that transition now."
Thijs is currently working on a job where they have removed an old asphalt plant. They now have to prepare this place for a new distribution center to be built. In the project they encountered a few challenges and one of them is that the peat soil they are building on is softer, but this does not affect the machine. He works long days and then he sometimes has to change his Powerbox, but that is no problem at all, says Thijs. ''Changing the Powerboxes is done super fast, I do it within 6 minutes. Then at the end of the day I just plug the machine in and go home and arrive at work the next day with a fully loaded machine. Filling up with diesel will then take you a little longer.''
We announced a long time ago that GBO is participating in the ' Building site of tomorrow '. Together with seven other companies, they will work with electrical equipment and test its operation. Together with TNO, these research results will be shared and, in addition to informing the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), they can also tell the industry what is involved. In this way, the sector can learn from these cases and hopefully be able and dare to take the step towards zero-emission sooner. “We are following developments closely. Because we usually act as a subcontractor, such an electrical machine does not offer us a tender advantage. The electric machine is widely used in collaboration with partner BAM Infra, says co-owner Wilko van Oort.”
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