Collaboration
at the forefront of development ProSilva Oyj, which operates in Ruovesi in the interior of Finland, is a forest machine manufacturer and long-term partner of Kesla. “Our cooperation dates back to before ProSilva
so it was natural for ProSilva and Kesla to join
was founded. My brother and I used to do forest
forces.
work, originally forest fertilisation. There were no
ProSilva introduced a hybrid harvester at FinnMETKO 2012.
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suitable machines in the market, so we started
Towards hybrids
to make them ourselves,” says Lasse Karilainen.
In 2012, ProSilva presented its first hybrid har-
Kesla’s founder Antti Kärkkäinen did the same
vester in Finland at the Metko exhibition. The
back in the day – he built the machines himself,
910 Eh was the occasion of the year at Metko. In
noting that there was a wider demand in the
addition to final felling, the medium-sized chip-
market for smart technical solutions.
per was also reported to be suitable for thinning
The Karilainen brothers used Kesla harvester
and harvesting energy wood. The 151 kW diesel
heads on their machine when they were building
engine of the hybrid machine was replaced by a
small harvesters that could work with 30 metres
60 kW diesel and two consecutive 30 kW electric
between wheel tracks.
motors. The goal was to save up to 40% on fuel
“A small company can’t just follow develop-
consumption per cubic metre of wood.
ments, it must lead them.” This is how ProSilva
The development was driven by tighter emis-
defined its position in the market when the com-
sion standards. However, the global conquest
pany was founded.
with the hybrid harvester was sooner said than
“At that stage, Kesla with its cranes and harvest-
done; the technical solutions needed further
ers became more and more involved. There was
refinement.
a lot of cooperation with Kesla’s Kimmo Paak-
“In truth, we were about ten years ahead of our
kunainen and Mika Tahvanainen. The coopera-
time. There were losses because development
tion was open. The base machine was ours, and
work and testing is extremely expensive,” says
the crane and the harvester head came from
Karilainen.
Kesla.”
ProSilva and Kesla are also on the same track in
Chilean forest companies are among the largest
hybrids; Kesla announced the first ever hybrid
in the world. It was difficult for an SME to break
chipper in 2014. The starting point of the de-
into such a large and challenging market alone,
velopment of the KESLA C860H hybrid chipper
