The European Clean Trucking Alliance (ECTA) welcomes the revision of the Electricity Market Design (EMD) rules as an opportunity to ensure Europe’s electricity market is on track to facilitate a rapidly electrifying transport system.
As an alliance of logistics and shipping companies working to rapidly reduce their emissions from road transport by switching to zero-emission trucks (ZET), we want to stress the importance of connecting short- and long-term charging infrastructure planning as well as to enable grid preparedness for increasing electricity needs to enable a decarbonized European transport system for decades to come.
The expected expansion of a truck charging network in terms of both electricity demand and spatial planning, will need to inform distribution and transmission network planning. It is key that the reform of the EMD also aligns with the targets for deploying charging points for heavy-duty trucks, as recently agreed under the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation, but also factors in increased demand on the grid that will be coming from other regulations. For optimal build-out of charging infrastructure, the needs of hauliers in terms of charging demand and suitable locations need to be matched with the grid’s current and planned hosting capacity.
In the future, electricity grid optimization could comprise discharging from truck (and additional on-site) batteries providing additional flexibility.
ECTA suggests the following recommendations:
- Long-term grid planning and investment
- Accelerated grid connection processes
- Shortened period for updates on grid connection requests
- Prioritization of defined grid connection requests, including for HDV charging
- More transparent and proactive planning for connecting electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure
- Consider measures for making better use of demand-side flexibility from EVs
- Lower the threshold for participation in the balancing and ancillary services market