Let’s highlight some of the ways these three are poised to serve electric truck customers.
1. Subsidies. The high upfront costs associated with purchasing vehicles and installing electric MHDV infrastructure represent a major hurdle for truck fleet operators, and Joint Utilities of New York, which includes Con Edison and National Grid, has created a $67 million turnkey pilot program. Budget to help fleets install chargers and estimate vehicle and infrastructure costs. This program provides eligible fleets with subsidies of up to 90% of charging infrastructure installation costs on the utility side and 50% of costs on the customer side.
2. Tools to help with fleet decision making and cost analysis. Utilities have created tools for their own use and for their customers to better understand grid planning timelines, future upgrades that may be necessary, and the costs involved in truck electrification. National Grid provides fleet consulting services that help customers estimate the impacts of energy demand and distribution, understand future electricity costs, and explore options to reduce electricity costs.
Con Edison created a fleet electrification calculator to help fleets estimate the cost of a charging station for different types of vehicles (light, medium and heavy) and show fleet owners their costs and savings if they switch to electric MHDVs. Once fleets use these tools, utilities can also obtain valuable data on customer behavior and preferences, which can help determine which locations need the most power.
The Massachusetts Center for Clean Energy and CALSTART have created a program with Eversource and National Grid that assigns a project team to assist fleet owners with the entire electrification process. The team helps with things including researching truck models, understanding financing and incentive opportunities, and planning equipment shipments.
3. Reducing electricity prices. The cost of operating battery electric trucks depends largely on the cost of electricity. Con Edison is offering a $0.03/kWh rebate for charging between midnight and 8 a.m., plus additional incentives to avoid charging during peak times. For Con Edison, this has an added benefit because it can help relieve demand on the entire system, especially when loads from other activities are high.
There is other potential support. One example from outside the Northeast is the offering of multilingual fleet services. California-based Pacific Gas and Electric shares its electric vehicle fleet software in multiple languages, making information more accessible to a wider range of people.
What about the capacity of the distribution network? Can existing electrical assets handle electric truck charging? Based on our 2023 Infrastructure Assessment estimates, by 2030, the peak load from truck depot charging in areas served by National Grid, Con Edison, and Eversource could reach 68 megawatts. The same study estimated that charging pad capacity on local distribution networks, in other words, the theoretical maximum capacity where all MHDV chargers draw power simultaneously from the grid at their rated capacity, could exceed 500 MW. This does not include public charging, which will also need electricity. Adding a half-gigawatt of new capacity across service areas in the Northeast would likely involve new feeder lines, transformer upgrades, and possibly the construction of substations that could cost hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. Overcoming challenges is important, because long wait times can put projects behind schedule and jeopardize compliance with advanced clean truck regulations.
In response to actions by the New York State Department of Public Service to address MHDV charging infrastructure challenges, New York’s combined utilities recognized the imminent need to build MHDV charging infrastructure and agreed that grid investments should be prioritized in areas where energy demand is high and spare capacity is tight. With federal funding and assistance from CALSTART, National Grid launched the Northeast Charging Corridors Plan through which it aims to map out an electric truck charging network for the entire Northeast region.
The actions taken by the New York Combined Facilities and National Grid reflect their desire to take action to accelerate and expand the trucking process. The next step is to translate these signals into proactive planning, and for regulators to agree to build and connect MHDV customers to the network.
