Fraunhofer ISI and Amazon: just 1,000 megawatt charging hubs may be enough to support heavy-duty e-trucks in Europe by 2030
The key findings of the study, based on Amazon’s open-source CHALET tool, show that for an electrification target of 15% battery electric truck (BET) share in long-haul, 1,000 optimally selected charging locations could enable 91% of truck traffic while 500 locations would allow for about half of truck flows.
Fraunhofer ISI and Amazon joined forces to conduct quite an interesting study. Their target was to answer a ‘simple’ question: how many public charging stations will we need in Europe to face the requirements of heavy-duty electric trucks by 2030?
So, using traffic flow estimates for 2030, the study built on Amazon’s open-source CHALET tool to analyse 20,000 potential public truck charging locations along the major European highways and a large data set of 1.6 million truck trip combinations. The results suggest that just 1,000 charging stations equipped with Megawatt Charging System (MCS) outlets could enable about 91% of expected long-haul trucking traffic.
Why just 1,000 megawatt charging hubs would be required in Europe
More into details, the key findings of the study show that for an electrification target of 15% battery electric truck (BET) share in long-haul, 1,000 optimally selected charging locations could enable 91% of truck traffic while 500 locations would allow for about half of truck flows. This result is particularly surprising, as the number of suggested locations is smaller than the minimum infrastructure targets required by the European Union.
Additionally, no depot charging is foreseen, and only 400 km of real-world range which some newly available commercial battery truck models already exceed. “These results show that even fewer locations than required by the European Union would enable almost all European truck traffic. However, the locations that are built will need to secure sufficient grid power, with some sites requiring up to 12 megawatts of grid capacity to support up to 20 MCS outlets”, commented Patrick Plötz, Coordinator of the Business Unit Energy Economy at Fraunhofer ISI and author of the study.
Potrebbe interessarti
Siemens successfully tested its 1 Megawatt charging system
MCS development is key for heavy-duty transport electrification
“This research suggests that industry needs to accelerate development and adoption of megawatt charging systems like MCS, as this enables logistics operators who do not have access to depots to effectively electrify their fleets”, he added.
The study is part of the HoLa project which is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport as part of the electric mobility funding guideline with a total of 12 million euros and is being conducted as a technology and test project in the context of implementing the “Overall Approach to Climate-Friendly Commercial Vehicles”. The analysis used Amazon’s open-source CHALET tool which was developed to help industry, governments, and local authorities identify optimal locations for electric truck charging infrastructure.
