The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced a new $100 million funding stream under the Driving the National program to support new electric heavy vehicles for two major operators.
Both Linfox and Toll will receive funding to decarbonise their fleets, with ARENA separately providing $19.6 million to Linfox and $9 million to Toll to decarbonise freight.
Linfox’s funding will allow it to deploy 26 battery electric trucks and charging infrastructure across three distribution centres in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria over four years.
The deployment will go to a range of customers across metropolitan and regional routes, with the aim being to validate the performance of heavy electric trucks over long distances on multiple duty cycles per day and at scale.
“As an early adopter of electric vehicles, Linfox is proud to be partnering with the federal government to grow our electric fleet and accelerate efforts to decarbonise the logistics and supply chain in Australia,” Linfox Australia and New Zealand CEO Mark Mazurek says.
Toll will receive the $9 million for its Project TruckVolt that will roll out 28 battery electric trucks and the required infrastructure at 10 customer and Toll-owned sites across Australia.
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It allows Toll to invest $67 million in running the vehicles and establishing at least 30 new charging ports, with the investment to see Toll add 10 Volvo FM electric prime movers and 18 Volvo FE electric rigids to its fleet.
The fleet of battery electric vehicles will be integrated into Toll’s third-party logistics operations servicing key customers including Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, Woolworths, Bluescope and Origin Energy. In doing so, Toll says it will become the largest operator of battery electric heavy vehicles on behalf of Australia’s third-party logistics sector.
The roll-out with customers is expected to commence from February next year and is projected to abate 1,810 tonnes of CO2 emissions per annum from Toll’s total fleet emissions.
Toll Group managing director Alan Beacham says the project was one of the largest corporate investments in heavy electric vehicles in Australia, putting Toll at the forefront of the country’s logistics decarbonisation efforts.
“The funding from ARENA supports an important part of our broader strategy to optimise the environmental sustainability of our operations, and we’re delighted to be supporting our customers through a shared commitment to decarbonising their supply chains without needing to rely solely on carbon offsets,” he says.
“We’re excited at the prospect of expanding electrification across a larger portion of our fleet over time.”
ARENA CEO Darren Miller says the heavy transport sector has an important role to play in reducing the environmental impact of moving goods.
“The heavy vehicle market has matured significantly over the past year in relation to battery electric vehicles, particularly vehicle availability and infrastructure,” he says.
“However, there are still significant hurdles including upfront costs for operators, challenges with charging technology and infrastructure, as well as the lack of real-world data.
“Transport accounts for about one-fifth of Australia’s CO2 emissions, with heavy vehicles a significant share of the transport emissions pool, emphasising why ARENA is focusing in this area of greatest impact.
“We know that customer demand across different modes of transport will continue to increase, with the transport sector expected to become Australia’s largest source of emissions by 2030.”
The funding signifies ARENA’s focus to support projects that deploy electric trucks, heavy vehicle charging solutions and other innovations that encourage the uptake of battery electric vehicles.
“Supporting both Linfox and Toll to electrify their heavy vehicle fleet is a significant milestone in our goal to decarbonise transport. By transitioning to electric vehicles, not only are these companies able to reduce their carbon footprint, but it also sets a new standard for sustainability in freight,” Miller says.
“This is what our Driving the Nation program is about – providing support to businesses to electrify their fleets, and in turn, accelerating the uptake of electric vehicles on our roads.”
Both projects will not only contribute to ARENA’s decarbonisation goals but will also assist the industry in assessing the technical and commercial feasibility of electrifying heavy vehicle fleets and showing the transport and freight sectors what is possible when decarbonising heavy vehicles.
The new focus areas under the Driving the Nation Program will be open to applications from November 9.