Fossil-Free Power for Chainsaws and Handheld Tools with Husqvarna Group

Opportunity overview

Husqvarna offers a wide range of chainsaws and handheld tools for forests and parks. You can learn more about the products and their specifications at husqvarna.com.

Those tools are usually battery-powered, using lithium-ion battery cells, or gas-powered, using two-stroke internal combustion engines.

Husqvarna has a science-based target to reduce the CO2 emittted by the tools when they are being used. That makes batteries the preferred option whenever possible. But for some applications, the energy density (gravimetric and volumetric) of current lithium-ion batteries is not high enough.

A typical use case are lumberjacks working the whole day in forest areas not accessible with a motorized vehicle. With a gas-powered chainsaw, they need to carry just a few liters of gas to work the whole the day. With a battery-powered tool, they would need to carry a few tens of kilograms of batteries, which is not realistic.

We are interested in exploring innovative fossil-free solutions that would help us overcome this challenge, whether it is a carbon-neutral fuel, an improved battery technology, a portable hydrogen fuel cell, or any other solution satisfying our goals and constraints.