Canadian Industrial Group Cuts Heavy Equipment Energy Costs by 87% with LiuGong Electric Fleet

Groupe Bellemare, a Canadian industrial group, has released interim findings from an ongoing electric heavy equipment testing program at Quebec worksites, showing battery-powered machinery reduced energy costs by more than 87% compared with diesel.

The initiative, launched in 2024 under the Plug-In Fleet Heavy Equipment research program alongside IVI — Quebec’s Institut du véhicule innovant — involves wheel loaders and excavators from Chinese manufacturer LiuGong. Across roughly 15,000 motor hours logged at the company’s sites, electricity drawn from the provincial Hydro-Québec grid cost under $54,000. An equivalent volume of diesel fuel for the same workload would have totalled approximately $423,000, a nearly eightfold difference.

Operations manager Jason Lagassé described energy expenditure within the work cycle as “almost zero.” The testing also found that maintenance costs for the electric excavators and loaders were comparable to those of equivalent diesel machines under real worksite conditions.

The program is scheduled to run through 2028, but Groupe Bellemare says it is already planning additional LiuGong purchases and intends to continue shifting its heavy fleet toward battery platforms, citing the confirmed fuel savings as the basis for that decision.

Source: Electrek