13.05.2026

CranePower from New Zealand

New Zealand start-up company CranePower has launched the E-Gen, a battery based mobile power system for construction sites, designed as an alternative to diesel generators.

CranePower says its E-Gen uses battery power to cover short high demand peaks, reducing the need to run diesel generators continuously during periods when power demand is low. The company said it can work with a generator or mains supply, managing power sources in real time, and claims early use at sites in New Zealand and Australia has cut fuel costs by up to 85 percent.

Founder, Elliot Peacocke said: “Construction has been running on diesel generators for decades, but it’s an incredibly inefficient system. You’re burning fuel all day to service short bursts of demand. In today’s market, that’s wasteful, expensive, and unpredictable.”

The E-Gen is a mobile energy storage system that uses its Adaptive Power Platform to manage power delivery and peak demand, for products such as tower cranes, potentially allowing the use of smaller generators or connection to a three phase outlet on urban sites without a transformer. The company said the unit has a footprint around 10 percent of a containerised system, can be delivered by a standard pickup truck, and is able to run in parallel in groups of up to eight for larger projects.

Peacocke added: “Fuel is one of the highest uncontrolled costs on a construction site. It’s driven by global events, not by the operator. What we’ve done is remove that dependency and replace it with something far more stable and efficient. We are matching the power supply to how sites actually operate. Once you do that, the waste disappears, along with the costs.”

Each unit has 4G remote monitoring to track power use, charge percentage, temperature and total kilowatt hours. The data can then be used to estimate diesel savings and emissions avoided. The company also says each E-Gen has a 15 year life span.

Based in Auckland and established in 2021, by Peacocke, who previously ran a diesel generator business, said that he had seen first hand how much fuel and energy was wasted, so he decided to launch an alternative.