Amp it up

Does this tech from Asia make for a more efficient construction site?

I’ve been talking to the Chief Operating Officer, Julian de Jonquieres, about how Hong Kong start-up Ampd Energy could help clients and contractors on UK construction sites.

The background to this is that Ampd’s product sought to replace or reduce the need for on site diesel generators. This was a serious issue in some Asian locations such as Hong Kong, where the ability to secure large power supplies in a timeframe to service a construction site is limited and fraught with risks (delay, service disruption etc.). The common solution is to ‘just’ opt for on site diesel generators which remove any risk of these grid issues.

Ampd developed a product they call the Enertainer (Energy / Container). It’s an advanced, compact and connected battery energy storage system (BESS)… so it’s a battery! If you’re like me, you’ll be shouting at your screen now saying a battery is different to a generator - correct.

But let’s take a step back. Big bits of kit on construction sites (think cranes, welding units and hoists) have high load requirements, particularly when they kick-in. Because of this, a diesel generator will have to be sized to be able to deliver that load, even though most of the time the requirement is much lower - this is inefficient and wasteful. And, if you use a temporary building supply (TBS) from the grid you essentially specify (and pay for) a large connection to be able to deliver those high loads for a very small percentage of the time. So whether it is on site diesel generation or grid connection, you end up with a supply designed for peak demand which runs mostly at a much lower load.

Back to the Enertainer, and how does a battery solve this issue? The key is that it takes a small, continuous input and delivers a large output when needed, for example a crane or hoist lifting something.

And yes, you still need something to charge it with, but in the two scenarios described above, both can be improved with the Enertainer:

• Diesel Generator - the generator can be much smaller as it is sized to deliver the small trickle of electricity, rather than the peak load. Whilst this doesn’t eliminate the diesel, it does reduce it vastly. We have to accept that some construction sites are remote and not able to connect to a grid, so this use case will be around for a while yet.

• Grid Connection - the supply from the grid can much smaller, which can save cost, limit cabling and infrastructure works and de-risk the programme. There are also secondary benefits such as managing the charging time to be off-peal.

Both also have a degree of power backup - should the grid connection or generator fail for a short period, the site can continue to operate.

The team on my London project are currently looking at the Ampd Enertainer to see if there is potential to use it. From talking to Julian, it’s likely you’ll see some of these appearing on a couple of London sites in the near future as Ampd lands in the UK.

One key to this is understanding the business case. The units can be leased or bought with (so I’m told) a relatively short and attractive payback period, plus they claim to bring about other benefits as mentioned above. Another interesting perspective is whether the batteries themselves can serve a purpose post-construction. Can they be extracted from the Enertainer and used in the permanent development either as backup battery or in the same way they are used on site (trickle input, large output)?

At this stage, using the Enertainer is just an idea being explored, but I may do a further write-up on this in the future if one is deployed on our London site.