Battery-electric 50-tonne crane builds Breda bus depot

Emissions limits set the machine choice

The depot in Breda, North Brabant, houses, charges and maintains electric buses and was completed in 2025. Its site sits directly next to a nature reserve, which made minimising nitrogen emissions a condition of the works rather than a preference. Alongside NOx filters on other plant, the contractor brought in emission-free electric machines, with the 653 Electro Battery crane taking the central lifting role.

Van der Ven B.V. of Brakel has been trading for more than 55 years and works largely in infrastructure construction.

Same load chart as the diesel

The battery version carries the same figures as the diesel-powered 653: a maximum main boom length of 30.4 metres and a lifting capacity of 50 tonnes. In practice the crew reported no perceptible difference in feel between a hydraulic pump driven by a diesel engine and one driven by an electric motor.

Endurance was the question most likely to decide whether a battery machine is usable on a real programme. Working from a fixed position, the crane comfortably completed a full working day, and in some cases two, without an interruption for charging. There was consistently enough capacity left to finish the shift.

Cab, app and support

The operator’s feedback covered comfort, intuitive controls and visibility from the cab. A machine app displays state of charge, remaining charging time and any faults, which removes most of the guesswork from planning the next day’s work around the battery.

Local Sennebogen dealer Van den Heuvel supported the project, with quick parts availability and advice cited as keeping site operations running smoothly. Maintenance requirements on the battery machine are described as straightforward, which matters where a specialist unit is committed to a single site for the duration of a contract.

The depot itself is part of the wider electrification of public transport in North Brabant, housing, charging and servicing the electric bus fleet. Building it with battery plant rather than diesel kept the construction phase consistent with what the finished building is for, and allowed work to continue next to the reserve without the nitrogen headroom that a conventional site would have consumed.

For contractors facing tightening restrictions on emissions in sensitive zones, the Breda job is a useful data point: a 50-tonne class crawler crane running a normal working day on battery power, on a project whose whole purpose was to electrify a bus fleet.

Source: Sennebogen — Photos: Sennebogen