More power, less fuel consumption – the eoil-Systemplus in construction equipment.
Construction firm Albert Weil has been working on building projects in the Limburg area of Germany for 60 years, and also specializes in earth moving and overburden removal in clay pits and stone quarries. They operate excavators, tracked vehicles and a fleet of 18 articulated 40-tonne dumper trucks, including 15 made by Volvo and fitted with the eoil-Systemplus. These vehicles are in use ten hours a day.
The company first experimented with vegetable oil as far back as January 2005, when it tried a two-tank system manufactured by one of eoil’s competitors. However the system did not work very well in construction machinery and was complicated for the operators to use, which also caused problems.
As a result, the decision was taken to gradually switch all 15 Volvo trucks over to the eoil-Systemplus. To date, the eoil-powered trucks have not required any non-routine maintenance, and have performed trouble-free for over 1,000 hours. The service interval has been reduced from 500 to 250 hours of operation, but that seems a small price to pay for this level of reliability – and moreover, company director Klaus Rohletter believes it is only a matter of time before the interval between oil and filter changes can be extended to 500 hours again.
Albert Weil currently uses about 2.5 million litres of fuel a year to keep its fleet running, and vegetable oil accounts for about 400,000 litres of this – resulting in an annual saving of approximately 100,000 euros. To increase this figure, the company wants to convert its excavators and tracked vehicles to vegetable oil as quickly as possible. The savings potential this offers is even greater, as these machines can use up to 80 litres of fuel an hour, twice as much as a dumper truck.
