Make way for 'enertainers': Gensets at construction sites may be going out

The battery revolution is moving from the highway to the construction site.

At a project in northern Hong Kong, vn Ltd. has swapped out diesel generators with massive lithium-ion batteries called Enertainers to power the giant cranes that erect high-rises. It’s yet another indication of how reduced cost and improved efficiency have opened the door for the technology to move into fields once thought impossible to electrify.

While construction cranes have always run on electricity, they have tended to use diesel generators because the massive bursts of power needed would drain local grids and risk blackouts. Batteries can take barely