En-Route Opportunity Charging for Heavy-Duty Battery Electric Trucks in Drayage Operations: Case Study at the Southern California Ports

This paper presents a data-driven methodology for analyzing the deployment of heavy-duty (HD) battery electric trucks (BETs) in drayage operations by providing them with en-route opportunity charging. The analysis makes use of real-world activity data of existing drayage trucks at the San Pedro Bay Ports in California. The methodology involves first identifying trip-and-tour patterns of the trucks as well as whether they are loaded or unloaded, and then simulating energy consumption of the BETs if they follow these trip-and-tour patterns. En-route opportunity charging scenarios at different locations were then modeled to determine the state-of-charge (SOC) profiles of two example BETs based on two different charging power levels. Results show that one of the BETs would only need opportunity charging at the home base in order to complete all of its trips over a simulated two-day period. On the other hand, the other BET would need not only opportunity charging at the home base, but also take advantage of en-route opportunity charging at loading/unloading stops and also extending the length of the stop time on one of its stops, which will consequently impact the schedule of the trips that follow. In addition, our results show that there was no significant improvement in the SOC when increasing the charging power level from 50 to 150 kilowatt (kW) at the home-base and at one of the stops for this truck. These results highlight the importance of providing BETs, even those in short-haul operations, with access to en-route charging opportunities in order to increase the deployment of BETs.