Maersk, Prologis Launch EV Truck Charging Station
They claim the 9-megawatt facility can charge 96 heavy-duty trucks simultaneously. Similar types of facilities will be necessary for clean commercial transportation.
Regulators, investors, and practical considerations have promoted electric vehicles to help control greenhouse gas reduction. But the push includes not just cars but many types of commercial vehicles, like trucks for deliveries and longer hauls. California has set the move to electric trucks for drayage by 2035 and heavy-duty hauling by 2045.
However, electric vehicles can’t go far if operators have no place to recharge them. Vehicle size and cargo weight demand large batteries that can store significant energy to power the electric motors that turn the wheels. Recharging stations at logistic facilities will need much higher capability than a Tesla Supercharger, which can require hundreds of kilowatts of power, if there’s any hope of getting a truck back on the road in a reasonable amount of time.
Prologis and Maersk-owned Performance Team announced what they claim is Southern California’s “largest heavy-duty electric vehicle (EV) charging depot, located near the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and powered by the nation’s largest EV truck microgrid.”
The two companies say that the 9-megawatt facility will be able to charge 96 EV trucks simultaneously. “Performance Team will be using its fleet of Volvo VNR Electric trucks which have a range of 240 miles and can charge up to 80% in 90 minutes,” a press release said.
Prologis installed the charging infrastructure for a microgrid that can deliver the necessary power levels before utility power grid upgrades make the addition unnecessary. “Prologis developed an innovative charging solution, in conjunction with Mainspring Energy, to build a microgrid, which is any small network of electrical generators and loads that may be grid-connected but is capable of operating independently of the local grid,” they wrote. “The Prologis Denker microgrid uses 2.75 MW of fuel-flexible, hydrogen-ready linear generators paired with 18 MWh of batteries to provide up to 9 MW of charging capacity.”
This new charging depot is the third one that Prologis and Performance Team have built. “Performance Team facilities in Santa Fe Springs and Commerce, equipped with Prologis Mobility charging infrastructure, provide 4 MW of charging capacity—enough to charge 38 electric trucks.”