
Volvo CE and Penta unveiled two new mobile charging solutions for North American construction fleets at the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in Las Vegas.
Volvo CE unveiled two Volvo-branded mobile charging units at a press conference last night, calling them the next logical step towards electrifying the entire worksite.
“We all have a common goal to revolutionize the sustainable technology landscape in the heavy equipment sector,” said Dr. Ray Gallant, Vice President Sustainability and Productivity Services at Volvo CE. “Collaborating on these products allows us to take important steps forward in the adoption of electric machines.”
Our first mobile charger, the PU750, is a mobile DC fast charging solution developed to be an ideal solution for quickly charging larger equipment on site without the need for an adapter. The Portable Power Unit (hence the “PU”) packs 750 usable kWh into a towable chassis that can fully charge the batteries in a machine like the Volvo EC230 Electric Excavator from 0-100% three times before needing to recharge itself.
Volvo PU Quick Specifications

When the PU750 needs to be charged, it can be managed using the grid-interactive UIG power system. This allows the battery transport device to maximize available AC power while tracking multiple assets simultaneously, all managed and visualized within the GridSure platform to make vehicle power and charging management clear to the fleet manager.
“We partnered with UIG last year because of their expertise in integrating multiple assets to maximize on- and off-grid charging capabilities,” said Darren Tasker, vice president, industrial, Volvo Penta North America. “Integrating our Volvo CE teammates into the partnership has always been the plan, and it is exciting to see the results of this relationship so quickly.”
Volvo PU130 AC Charger

On the AC side of the equation, the new Volvo PU130 is a Level 2 portable charger, designed for more compact machines (like the ECR25 Electric we first covered last April).
Volvo co-developed the PU130 with portable electricity, and using its own 48V technology, the PU130 provides the ability to charge equipment in less than an hour with an energy storage capacity of 130 kWh and a charging rate of 20 kW, while at the same time providing up to 40 Kilowatts of on-site power to power portable offices or other buildings.
Volvo says the portable chargers are further evidence of the OEM’s commitment to providing the best possible solutions to make carbon reduction in the construction industry a reality. “Battery-powered electrical equipment is not suitable for every job site or application, but its use cases continue to grow,” Dr. Gallant said. “As long as owners and operators make an effort to reduce emissions in any way they can, this is progress forward.”
Take Electric
Volvo press events at ACT Expo always bring something exciting and, more importantly, useful to the table – and these portable chargers are no exception.
As fleets are forced to go electric by a combination of legislation, environmental requirements, noise regulations, customer environmental, social and governance (ESG) targets and fluctuating fuel costs, the need to get usable energy to where work is done becomes a critical variable for fleets to solve. Solutions like this will help some fleets electrify sooner rather than later, which is why we’re all here.
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