Getting electricity to fleet depots has been identified as one of the biggest challenges facing fleet managers as they try to transition to battery electric trucks. It seems like fleets can get trucks from BEV manufacturers in a matter of months, but getting the electric service to the site can take a year or more.
No fleet likes to see trucks sitting on the lot, so having BEVs without a way to power them could prevent some fleets from moving to BEVs.
The good news is that powering BEVs is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Fleets can still add BEVs while waiting for their local utility to bring additional power to the site.
See also: What it takes to build charging infrastructure, according to a utility provider
The answer is to use portable chargers with on-site generators. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) published a report in July titled Interim Service Solutions and Timely Grid Connections for Large Transportation Electrification Projects. The report discusses the timing mismatch between the lead time required for fleets to procure BEVs and install charging infrastructure and the time the utility needs to provide electricity for the new load.
The solution is to use what EPRI calls interim solutions, which provide a bridge that allows fleets to begin deploying BEVs and operating them until full electric service can be brought to the site. One solution is to use on-site generators.
This is happening in the real world. Prologis and Performance Team, a Maersk company and participant in Run on Less—Electric DEPOT, launched a charging solution in conjunction with Mainspring Energy. It uses linear generators to provide charging for 96 trucks.
See also: Where alt-fuel infrastructure stands today: EV charging infrastructure
We are in a place with BEVs where there is a gap between the ability to get trucks and the ability to charge them. Into this gap comes generators, many of them powered by renewable natural gas.
In a perfect world, every fleet would be able to get all the BEVs it wants and the renewable electricity directly from its utility to power them at the same time. We are not in a perfect world, but the good news is we don’t have to be perfect. Having the ability to fuel trucks from power created by generators is a good interim solution while we work on ways to get electric power to fleet depots more quickly than we currently can.
A few weeks ago, I was with some people who I thought would be against this concept, i.e., using petroleum to create electricity to power electric vehicles. In fact, they also understand this is a complex long-term problem we are solving and that if this is a necessary interim step to achieving our goal, then that is a good thing.
I guess the bottom line here is that when it comes to BEVs, while you need to play the long game, you can begin taking small steps that may not be 100% perfect but are perfectly fine for where the technology is today.
