Solving for the Three Big Challenges of EV Truck Fleet Charging Power - Speed, Resilience, and Cost

Truck fleet electrification is revving up. U.S. businesses face stringent new public mandates and ambitious sustainability targets to rapidly reduce transportation emissions and replace diesel trucks.  Strong headwinds in charging infrastructure –  in the form of securing adequate power loads, ensuring power resilience, and controlling costs – add to the formidable challenge. To avoid business disruption, charging infrastructure problems demand a fast, flexible and cost-effective solution.

The most pressing challenge for fleet operators and the utilities who serve them is time. It can take years to acquire the electricity capacity and system upgrades necessary for fleet charging, depending on local utility expansion capability and project location. 

For instance, charging a fleet of 100 class 8 electric trucks requires approximately 10 megawatts of power — equivalent to powering more than 1,600 homes. Typically, utility planning to accommodate this level of grid expansion takes a year or more in paperwork and permitting, followed by a year or more to manufacture the multi-megawatt switchgear needed. Even a smaller EV truck fleet load, in the 2 megawatt range, can take multiple years to obtain the required power supply, assuming it can be committed at all.

Adding to the time pressure on business is the opportunity cost of missing out on the many incentive grants, subsidies, and rebates available to defray electrification costs that are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Dramatically reducing speed-to-power is critical for a successful fleet transition.

Resilience of the added charging power is also a crucial factor as critical new charging loads are introduced into the grid, given the extra stress these new loads place on the system. As extreme weather events and grid outages increase, resilience to keep fleets running is at premium. Downtime is financial loss. In some cases, such as emergency response vehicles and other critical infrastructure assets, any amount of downtime is unacceptable. In fact, many critical infrastructure assets may experience their highest demand during grid outages, such as fire trucks responding to emergencies or utility trucks for power outage response.

This resilience also must be sustainable to meet corporate ESG compliance targets. Without access to clean, resilient, flexible power generation, operators resort to using dirty diesel generators as a backup, but those days are also numbered.  Some may consider batteries as a short-term solution for a few hours of backup power, but they simply cannot economically accommodate multi-day resilience scenarios.

Finally, cost of EV charging infrastructure is the third major area of challenge, both in terms of absolute cost and cost control. For truck fleet operators, the predictability of fuel costs has been relatively stable, with many relying on long-term supply arrangements. The ability to refuel a gas truck at a consistent price, any time of day or night, is highly valued. Electricity grid cost structures are less predictable, with rate increases and sudden spikes. These complex rate structures are designed to manipulate and smooth the timing of demand peaks, which provides benefits for grid management but reduces control and predictability for truck fleet managers. This presents a host of operational complications, including not only cost but timing  of fleet charging. 

To better tackle all of these fundamental challenges – time, resilience, and cost – it’s worth considering the option of onsite, resilient, clean power generation.

Bringing Power Generation Directly to Site for EV Fleets

Onsite power generation can provide significant value for EV fleets, as well as the utilities who serve them, particularly in terms of dramatically faster speed of deployment, as well as in increased resilience, flexibility, and cost control. With onsite power generation, EV fleet operators or their utilities can generate the necessary extra electricity locally, and deploy the fleet charging infrastructure to have EV trucks up and running in months, rather than years. 

This advantage also extends to the superior resilience of local, fuel-based power generation. Fuel-flexible, low emission power generators can run on biogas or natural gas today and flex without retrofit to clean hydrogen or ammonia as they become more widely available. And by generating their own electricity, operators can avoid peak demand charges and other complex rate structures that can drive up the cost of grid electricity. Having resilient onsite generation eliminates the need for diesel backup generators, eliminating those emissions along with those of diesel trucks.

For one global logistic leader working to deploy a fleet of more than 80 electric trucks, an onsite charging microgrid of 9.6 MW is able to reduce deployment time from nearly 36 months to just nine, eliminate effects of grid outages, achieve best-in-class total cost of ownership, and start with a renewable biogas-fueled system with the capability to shift to running zero-carbon clean hydrogen.

These factors truly make the difference for companies focused on keeping their fleets nimble, optimized, and focused on delivering on the promise of enhanced sustainability for customers and investors. Despite the challenges, there are solutions to help us overcome this hurdle to fleet level electrification – and onsite, fuel-flexible power generation is a cost effective, feasible way for fleet operators to make the electrified transportation transition as smoothly as possible.