Transport Scotland has established a plan called the HGV Decarbonisation Pathway for its Zero Emission Truck Taskforce, which aims to electrify Scotland’s heavy goods vehicle (HGV) fleets.
Over the past year, the taskforce has been meeting regularly to bring together key representatives from the logistics, manufacturing, energy and finance sectors to create a plan for the decarbonisation of Scotland’s road freight industry.
Three meetings took place, the first establishing consensus on the areas for action and the second exploring the infrastructure required to create and provide sufficient charging and the information needing to be shared.
Finally, the third and most recent meeting discussed emerging business models and growing the sector’s confidence.
To support the discussions, EV companies such as Gridserve, Fleete, and Zenobe provided an overview of their business models for the group.
The Society for Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) gave a presentation on their depot mapping work, in addition to detailed pre-reading on electricity networks and analysis of future HGV charging trends at depots and en route.
These meetings concluded with the production of the HGV Decarbonisation Pathway, which suggested that the largest barrier pertains to the time and difficulty in securing necessary grid connections/capacity.
It is worth noting that in 2019, in the context of a global climate emergency, the Scottish Parliament enacted legislation to reduce greenhouse gases by 75% by 2030 and 100% by 2045.
The transport sector is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Scotland, and, as of 2019, emissions from HGVs account for 12% of Scottish road transport greenhouse gas emissions.
This is why HGVs, as a specific section of the transportation industry, are being focused on by the national transport agency as a key area of improvement.
Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks (SSEN) Distribution has voiced its support for this plan. In response, Shirley Robertson, SSEN Distribution’s head of strategic planning and sustainability, said: “One of the key components of this transition is the decarbonisation of transport, and we are delighted to have been part of the team working collaboratively to shape this HGV Decarbonisation Pathway.
“A crucial part of our own investment strategies going forward is the ability to accurately forecast future load and demands on our network, and so sitting at the same table as the very people who are leading the transition to net zero truck fleets has been invaluable.”
Electrifying heavy fleets
Fleets continue to dominate the monthly new EV registrations in the UK, which is documented monthly by SMMT reports.
This sector was responsible for the entirety of February 2024’s increase, for example, with registrations up 25.2% and 15.5%, respectively, whilst private buyer uptake noted a -2.6% decrease.
The potential of electrifying HGV fleets has been explored at a national level in the UK, with the central government adding an electric heavy goods vehicle (eHGV) project to its funding scheme focused on supporting vehicle-to-everything (V2X) projects.
The project, led by Kaasai Services Ltd and its consortium of partners, ZevHub Ltd and Project Better Energy Ltd, received £1,404,414 from the government to support its development through a trial and first roll-out.
This project specifically focuses on the V2G services of an eHGV in terms of load-balancing, frequency stabilisation and resilience. It aims to demonstrate that V2X could significantly reduce the total cost of ownership for eHGVs, making them more affordable than diesel vehicles.
On a similar note, waste collection fleet operator Veolia has announced the completion of its first vehicle-to-grid (V2G) trial in January 2024.
The trial was able to charge and discharge 110kW of energy from two specially designed bi-directional vehicles. Collection vehicles are especially suitable for V2G charging, as their batteries are six times larger than the average car battery.
Veolia currently plans to electrify all of its 1,800 Refuse Collection Vehicles (RCV) by 2040, which together will be able to provide 200MW of daily flexible power capacity to the grid.