Flannery Plant Hire have invested £2.9million in Komatsu equipment in 2018 and were the first plant hirer to take delivery of the innovative EU Stage IV compliant Komatsu HB215LC-3 hybrid excavator.

One of the machines first projects was the £1.5bn A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon Improvement Scheme. This 26-mile project is the largest Highways England infrastructure project currently under construction. “The A14 project team have really engaged with this product,” says Niall Hester, Flannery Operations Manager: “they have allowed us to run a trial of the Komatsu Hybrid verses a standard twenty-tonne excavator. The machines have been working alternate days loading a scalping screener which is producing aggregate for use on the project.”

Data pulled from the machines showed that on a typical shift the HB215-3 consumed 70-litres of fuel (of this shift the telematics show that the machine was digging for 4.4-hours) equating to 14.46-litres per hour digging. In comparison the non-hybrid excavator consumed 87.5-litres of fuel during its shift, 4.4-hours of dig time with a fuel consumption of 16.9-litres of fuel for these hours. That makes the HB215-3 19% more efficient than the non-hybrid machine. Factoring in idle time this would suggest the hybrid could save approaching 100-litres of fuel per week on this type of task.