By Tore Harritshøj, CEO and co-founder of Spirii
The race is on to transform logistics and public transport for the better. Converting to electric heavy transport vehicles presents a huge opportunity for reducing carbon emissions, but also a suite of challenges to overcome.
But before we get to the latter, let’s talk about the former: the net positives that will come from converting the largest vehicles on our roads to cleaner, greener energy.
Right now, these vehicles represent just 2% of all traffic, but they produce around 25% of road emissions. That’s a big deal when we think about the wider context – that is, global targets for lowering emissions and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
The Paris Agreement, for example, has set a goal of “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels”.
In Denmark, meanwhile, the diesel tax is set to increase in 2025 with a view to making electric alternatives much more appealing. Sweden is now prohibiting petrol and diesel-powered commercial vehicles from entering a specific area of central Stockholm.
Initiatives like these will help stem the flow of climate change, but there are two key challenges to overcome when it comes to electric heavy transport infrastructure: cost and energy availability. So let’s dive into each.
Mitigating the cost of EV infrastructure
Investing millions in widespread electric heavy vehicle infrastructure – and the vehicles themselves – can seem daunting. That’s especially the case when, as we’ll discuss, accessing the energy you need can present its own challenges.
But there are ways to shrink that investment and, in some cases, even turn an eventual profit.
One proven strategy here is to make heavy vehicle chargers available to the public. By necessity, large vehicles need DC fast chargers, and these are in high demand by EV drivers looking to charge up quickly.
One Scandinavian bus company partnered with Spirii to provide a great real-world test case here. To help finance its electric transition, the company has allowed other companies to use its chargers at set times during the day. With buses normally charging at night, that means maximised station usage and a constant revenue stream that can help mitigate upfront costs.
Future-proofing grid management
How energy infrastructure can handle connecting more and more chargers and vehicles to the grid is a challenge that the entire industry has to overcome. More vehicles typically means more grid strain and an increased demand for power, so we must find solutions that can help ease things during this transitional period.
One solution is to turn to alternative power sources, such as solar energy. A public transport company from the Benelux region, has installed solar panels on its building roofs to supplement electricity from the grid.
When combined with battery storage and smart software it becomes a lot easier to distribute power to chargers without challenging the grid. But this solution also helps with another solution: grid balancing.
We tend to view the relationship between chargers and the energy grid as a one-sided draw. However, technologies like frequency regulation enable companies with heavy transport chargers to play a vital role in stabilising the national grid by adjusting their charging network's energy consumption in response to the grid's fluctuating demand.
This proactive approach to grid management is not only beneficial for the stability of the energy supply but also financially advantageous for the companies involved. By participating in frequency regulation programmes, they receive financial incentives, which can significantly offset the costs of their initial infrastructure investment.
If we are to succeed in rapidly and effectively electrifying heavy transport, we need to develop and implement more innovative strategies that minimise the strain on the power grid, while maximising return on investments.
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