Deployment of charging stations for electric trucks on highways in Belgium and Europe: assessment of power needs by 2030 and 2035

Electric trucks are on the raise driven by climate change concerns, technology improvement, active regional and national policies promoting the shift towards heavy fleet electrification. However, a consensus on the precise electricity consumption of electric trucks under various driving conditions is still missing. This leads to a high uncertainty regarding the charging power that will be needed along highways, given the expected 15% growth of number of e-trucks by 2035 in the EU. This may have a critical impact for electricity distribution system operators in the framework of network upgrade plans. In this paper, the energy consumption of e-trucks is estimated via a thorough review of the academic literature. Then, the market uptake of e-trucks based on manufacturers claims and transport organization reports is analysed in order to complement the data. Finally, it is used to improve the estimation of the charging power that will have to be deployed on highways (excluding other charging options) in Belgium and in Europe, at the horizons 2030 and 2035 respectively.