Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In this study a discrete event-based simulation approach is used to quantify and evaluate the power need from fast charging of an electrified Swedish forest transport fleet. The simulation is done on three locations which where evaluated as likely locations of charging infrastructure, two pulp industries as well as one terminal. The power need on these locations where evaluated, as well as dimensional peak power, number of charging ports, charging times, queuing times and how much of the fleet is technically possible to electrify today.
The study shows the power need and how this varies during an average day and at which times of the day the power is likely to be high. The power peaks is shown to be likelier during the morning than in the afternoon. The study also shows that the peak power extremes, as well as the dimensional amount of charging outputs, is quite high, although there seems to be a good potential for lowering these if strategies for planning and optimization of the transport and charging pattern is applied.
Furthermore, the results in this study shows that with today’s technology in battery electric trucks and charging infrastructure and no changes in the transportation pattern, a fleet of road operated forest transport vehicles can be electrified to a degree of over 60 %. In one case, where the transport conditions is even more beneficial for electrification, the degree of possible electrification seems to be as high as 75 %. Although, this only corresponds to about 50 % of the transport work of the studied fleets, 60 and 75 % is considered a high amount of trucks being electrified. If more trucks is to be electrified it is recommended to further investigate the possibility of planing and route optimizing, in order to adapt the transport pattern to the shorter ranges of the battery electric trucks and the availability of charging infrastructure.
This study is performed in cooperation with the Swedish forest industry research institute, Skogforsk, as a part of the research project Accelerate electrification of forest transports.