Nissan Sunderland Plant has unveiled a £1.4 million charging station for electric HGVs delivered by charging provider GRIDSERVE.
The facility has seven charging stations and can power up to ten eHGVs simultaneously. With a charging capacity of up to 360kW, it will support a fleet of 25 electric trucks. It is the first private, shared charging station of its kind in the UK.
The project, which is part of the government-funded Innovate UK Electric Freightway project, establishes an end-to-end supply chain that transports materials from Nissan UK’s supply base into Nissan Sunderland Plant and delivers finished vehicles between the plant and the Port of Tyne.
It will support 60 UK eHGV deliveries to the plant daily and is just one part of the site’s EV36Zero vision for sustainable manufacturing that brings together EVs, renewable energy and battery production.
Michael Simpson, vice president of supply chain management for Nissan AMIEO said Nissan Sunderland Plant is “exploring further opportunities to allow other hauliers to use the charging station as well as looking at other opportunities to maximise its full potential.”
GRIDSERVE led the project, which also saw collaboration from haulage partners Fergusons, Yusen and BCA.
Daniel Kunkel, CEO of GRIDSERVE, said: “The decarbonisation of transport logistics is much stronger and reaches far wider when done in partnership. Depot charging is critical for the electrification of HGVs, going hand in hand with future public infrastructure developments.
“As a first shared usage site, this location is leading the way in sustainable freight logistics.”
Electric Freightway forms part of the Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator programme, funded by the UK Government and delivered in partnership with Innovate UK. It was launched by GRIDSERVE in 2023, with a consortium of 33 organisations and representing £100 million investment, about two-thirds of which (£62.7 million) was government funding.
UK minister for the future of roads Lilian Greenwood said the first-of-a-kind project is “great to see”.
Just last week, GRIDSERVE secured £100 million in new equity investment from existing shareholders TPG, Infracapital, and Mitsubishi. The company said the equity would help it to deploy high-power EV charging infrastructure across UK roads. GRIDSERVE currently operates over 1,500 EV charging bays across 200 locations.
