CJD Equipment Electrification – Engineering a Megawatt-Scale Charging Infrastructure for Heavy Construction and Industrial Vehicles

The EV charging industry in Australia has spent most of its public conversation on logistics trucks and passenger cars. The industrial and construction equipment sector has received far less attention, even though it presents some of the most technically demanding and commercially significant electrification challenges in the country. 

Construction and mining fleets are not comparable to freight trucks or bus depots. Their operational patterns are irregular. Their battery sizes are extreme; industrial excavators and loaders carry battery packs measured in hundreds of kilowatt hours. Their sites often lack reliable grid infrastructure. The financial case for electrification is, in many cases, more compelling than in logistics, because diesel consumption in heavy construction equipment is extraordinarily high and the vehicles sit in specific locations for extended periods, which makes depot charging practical. 

EVSE’s project with CJD Equipment, a major Australian equipment dealer with a large mixed fleet of construction, materials handling, and industrial vehicles provided a detailed view of what electrification looks like in this sector. This article draws on that experience to describe the infrastructure design challenges, the electrical engineering requirements, and the operational considerations that are specific to industrial and construction fleet electrification. 

The Industrial Fleet Electrification Context 

CJD Equipment operates one of Australia’s largest equipment dealer networks, representing brands including Volvo Construction Equipment, FUSO, and other major manufacturers across a network of sites. The company’s fleet includes a mix of company-operated equipment and customer demonstration units, vehicles with varying usage patterns, dwell times, and energy requirements. 

What made CJD’s project technically interesting is precisely what makes industrial fleet electrification generally more complex than truck fleet electrification, the heterogeneity of the equipment. A construction fleet does not operate on fixed routes with predictable daily distances. An excavator might work twelve hours at a construction site and return to the depot needing a full recharge. A materials handler might operate two shifts with a two-hour window between them. A compact loader might be used intermittently across a working day and return to the depot at various states of charge. 

These usage patterns produce a charging demand profile that is less predictable than a logistics depot and harder to optimise using standard fleet scheduling approaches. The infrastructure design must accommodate variability, in arrival times, in state of charge at arrival, and in the energy required per vehicle, while still managing the site’s aggregate grid demand within the available connection. 

Battery Sizes and Power Requirements in Construction Equipment 

The battery capacities of electric construction equipment differ materially from the electric trucks and buses that most fleet charging infrastructure is designed around. 

The immediate implication is that a ten-unit construction fleet with a mix of compact, medium, and large equipment might require anywhere from 500kWh to 3,000kWh of energy delivery per night, a range that makes generic infrastructure sizing meaningless. Each project requires a detailed equipment inventory, a realistic usage analysis, and a charge demand model before any infrastructure specifications can be written. 

For CJD’s project, the equipment mix drove a charger specification that included both medium-power DC units for smaller equipment and higher-power DC positions for larger battery packs. The mix, and the way the load management system allocated capacity across the fleet, determined the required connection capacity, which in turn determined the infrastructure works required at each site. 

Site Conditions: The Dimension Most Infrastructure Providers Underestimate 

Construction and industrial sites present physical conditions that are categorically different from commercial car parks and logistics depots. The infrastructure challenges that are routine in a controlled warehouse environment become genuinely difficult in a working construction yard. 

Environmental Conditions 

Charger hardware deployed at construction and industrial sites is exposed to dust, mud, vibration, and equipment movement. A charging unit designed for a clean commercial car park that gets covered in concrete dust or hit by a passing machine creates expensive problems. IP ratings matter, construction site chargers should be specified to IP65 or higher, and physical protection, bollards, positioning relative to vehicle traffic needs to be designed into the site layout. 

Temperature ranges also exceed what is typical for commercial installations in some locations. Remote construction sites in northern Australia experience ambient temperatures that push standard charger operating ranges. Equipment specified for the site needs to be verified against the local temperature profile, not just the manufacturer’s stated operating range, which is often based on European conditions. 

Grid Availability at Remote Sites 

Many construction sites, and a significant proportion of Australian mining operations, are not connected to the main electricity distribution network. Off-grid and weak-grid sites require a fundamentally different charging infrastructure approach. 

For off-grid construction sites, the options are generator-backed charging, which erodes the fuel cost savings that make electrification financially attractive, solar-battery-charger hybrid systems, which can work well for equipment with predictable overnight dwell times, or high-voltage private network connections, which are practical for large permanent operations but prohibitively expensive for temporary sites. 

The solar-battery-charger hybrid approach is increasingly viable for construction sites with equipment that returns to a base camp each night. Solar generation during the day charges a battery storage system, the battery then delivers power to the charger fleet overnight when the equipment is connected. The sizing depends on the equipment’s energy requirement, the available solar resource at the site location, and the number of days of autonomy required. 

Temporary vs Permanent Installations 

Construction sites have a defining characteristic that doesn’t apply to logistics depots, they move. The infrastructure installed for a two-year project on one site needs to be recovered and potentially redeployed. This fundamentally changes the design philosophy for charging infrastructure. 

Permanent underground conduit and fixed charger mounting positions, which are optimal for a permanent depot, are poor choices for a temporary construction site. The approach that works for temporary deployments uses surface-mounted cable management, skid-mounted charging units that can be repositioned or removed without civil works, and modular electrical distribution that can be broken down and reassembled at the next site. 

EVSE’s approach to the temporary vs permanent distinction at CJD involved designing the core infrastructure elements, the incoming supply, the main distribution board, the load management controller, for permanence, while specifying the charger hardware and cable runs in a configuration that could be modified as the equipment mix and site layout changed. The infrastructure that’s expensive to change gets designed once for the long term. The infrastructure that needs to flex gets designed for flexibility from the start. 

Load Management for Heterogeneous Equipment Fleets 

Standard depot load management systems are designed around a relatively homogeneous fleet, vehicles with similar battery sizes, similar usage patterns, and similar charge requirements. Industrial equipment fleets don’t fit this model, and the load management approach needs to reflect that. 

Priority Rules for Mixed Equipment 

In a construction fleet, the charging priority hierarchy is more complex than ‘earlier departure gets more power. An excavator that needs to be at a job site at 7:00am with a full charge is a higher priority than a materials handler that’s operating on site all day and can absorb a partial charge. A demonstration unit that needs to be fully charged for a customer visit at 10:00am may be a higher priority than production equipment that will be used at the same site as the depot. 

The load management system needs to be configurable at the individual vehicle level, not just at a fleet-wide level. This means the OCPP-based platform needs to support vehicle-level priority settings, updated daily based on the following day’s operational plan, and it needs to recalculate the charging schedule dynamically when an unexpected vehicle arrives or a priority changes. 

Opportunity Charging and Partial Sessions 

Industrial equipment often has opportunity charging windows during the working day, a lunch break, a maintenance check, a period between tasks. A load management system that only optimises overnight charging misses the opportunity to use daytime capacity to reduce overnight demand, which can reduce peak demand charges and improve fleet readiness. 

Designing for opportunity charging requires charger positions accessible during the working day, not just in the overnight yard. It also requires the load management system to track partial charge sessions and incorporate them into the overnight charge calculation, so a vehicle that received two hours of daytime charging needs a smaller overnight session, freeing capacity for other vehicles. 

What the CJD Project Demonstrated About Industrial EV Infrastructure 

The Equipment Audit Is the Foundation 

Before any infrastructure decisions were made, EVSE conducted a detailed audit of CJD’s equipment fleet, vehicle by vehicle, battery capacity, typical daily energy consumption, operational schedule, and charge dwell time. This audit produced the actual data required to size the infrastructure correctly, not an estimate based on vehicle count and nameplate capacity, but a modelled load profile based on real operational patterns. 

Civil Works Dominated the Budget 

As is typical for large-scale EV charging infrastructure, the civil and electrical works, cable trenching, switchboard upgrades, earthing systems, cable containment, accounted for a larger proportion of the project budget than the charger hardware itself. This is the element most organisations don’t budget for adequately when they first engage with industrial fleet electrification. 

For CJD’s sites, the condition of existing electrical infrastructure varied significantly between locations. Sites that had been upgraded recently required only distribution works to connect new charger positions. Older sites required significant switchboard and incoming supply upgrades before any charger installation could proceed. The site assessment process produced the data to distinguish between these cases, which informed both the project budget and the timeline. 

The Maintenance Model Matters as Much as the Hardware 

Industrial equipment environments are harder on electrical infrastructure than commercial environments. Chargers get knocked, cables get damaged, dust and moisture find their way into enclosures. The maintenance model for an industrial fleet charging installation needs to account for this, with more frequent inspection schedules, higher-specification hardware, and a response capability that can handle faults in remote or physically demanding locations. 

CJD’s project used a managed maintenance model where EVSE’s service team-maintained visibility of the charging network’s operational status continuously and responded to faults against defined service level agreements. This transferred the operational complexity of maintaining charging infrastructure in a demanding environment from CJD’s internal team, who are experts in construction equipment, not electrical infrastructure, to a team with the specific expertise to manage it. 

The construction and industrial equipment sector represent one of the most significant untapped opportunities in Australian fleet electrification. The fuel consumption is high, the dwell times are workable, and the emissions reduction is meaningful. What has been missing is detailed, credible guidance on what the infrastructure actually involves equipment that doesn’t fit the logistics truck or passenger car mould. The CJD project is a reference case for an industry that needs them. 

Frequently Asked Questions 

How does EV charging for construction equipment differ from truck or passenger vehicle charging? 

Construction equipment presents three key differences: battery sizes are extreme, ranging from 30kWh for compact excavators to over 2MWh for heavy mining trucks, operational patterns are irregular and hard to predict, and sites often lack reliable grid infrastructure. These factors mean that standard fleet charging approaches, designed around predictable routes and overnight dwell times, don’t transfer directly to construction and industrial fleets. Infrastructure must be sized on actual usage data, not vehicle count, and designed for environmental conditions that commercial chargers aren’t rated for. 

What IP rating should charger hardware have on a construction or industrial site? 

Construction site chargers should be specified to IP65 or higher to handle dust, water ingress, and physical exposure. Standard commercial chargers designed for protected car parks or logistics depots are not rated for the dust, mud, vibration, and equipment movement typical of construction yards. Physical protection, bollards, positioning away from vehicle traffic lanes, is equally important and should be designed into the site layout, not added as an afterthought. 

How do you charge heavy construction equipment on an off-grid or remote site? 

The most viable approach for sites with reliable overnight equipment returns is a solar-battery-charger hybrid system: solar panels generate energy during the day, a battery storage system stores it, and the battery delivers power to the chargers overnight when equipment is connected. System sizing depends on the fleet’s total energy requirement, available solar resource at the location, and required autonomy (how many consecutive overcast days the system must handle). Generator-backed charging is possible but erodes the fuel savings that typically justify electrification in the first place. 

How should charging infrastructure be designed for a temporary construction site? 

Temporary sites require a fundamentally different design approach from permanent depots. Surface-mounted cable management, skid-mounted charging units that can be repositioned or removed without civil works, and modular electrical distribution are the key design principles. The core infrastructure elements (incoming supply, main distribution board, load management controller) can be designed for permanence and recovery, while the charger hardware and cable runs are specified for flexibility. Permanent underground conduit and fixed mounting are poor choices on a site that will close in two years. 

Why do civil and electrical works often cost more than the charger hardware itself? 

EV charger hardware is a relatively small component of total installation cost. The major cost drivers are cable trenching, switchboard and incoming supply upgrades; earthing systems, cable containment, and substation works for high-power installations. These costs scale with the condition of existing site infrastructure and the power levels required, older sites with outdated electrical infrastructure can require significant upgrades before any charger can be installed. A detailed site assessment before budgeting is essential; assumptions based on charger hardware price alone will consistently under-estimate total project cost. 

What load management capability does a mixed construction fleet require? 

Mixed construction fleets need vehicle-level priority settings, not just fleet-wide rules. An excavator departing at 7:00am has a different priority profile than a demonstration unit needed for a customer visit at 10:00am or a materials handler operating on-site all day. The load management platform must support daily updates to vehicle-level priorities, dynamic recalculation when vehicles arrive unexpectedly or priorities change, and integration of partial daytime charging sessions into the overnight charging schedule. Standard logistics depot load management systems, designed for homogeneous fleets with predictable schedules, are insufficient for this level of complexity.