An electric vehicle charging pilot by one of the world’s biggest waste companies could chart a new course for the industry as operators look to electrify their fleets.
Electrification is increasingly seen as the future for waste vehicles, based on corporate commitments and requests from municipal customers, but costs and charging infrastructure are still evolving.
France-based Veolia recently completed what it described as the the world’s first two-way charging test for waste collection vehicles, which could have implications for fleets in other regions. According to Phillippe Queruau, director of electrification services for Veolia UK, waste collection fleets are uniquely placed to take advantage of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging technology.
Queruau said studies of the all-electric collection fleet Veolia operates for London’s Westminster Borough, powered by one of the company’s waste-to-energy plants, revealed some of the reasons. They run stable predictable runs within a reasonable range of their original base and when they return to storage their batteries generally still hold 50% of their charge.
In the evenings, after their journeys have been completed, the lorries sit quietly parked as, he said, most of London “puts the kettle on and the grid goes into peak demand”. The UK electricity grid offers tiered subsidies, so Queruau said the excess energy stored in these waste batteries would have value if it could be used to power offices, offsetting some of the cost of peak energy prices .
After Veolia spent several years completing the conversion of the Westminster collection fleet to electric vehicles, some of the trucks began to reach the end of their lives. Veolia selected two of these trucks for an upgrade, retrofitting them to the latest combined charging system standards and equipping them for two-way charging.
The company entered these vehicles in a trial to evaluate the technology, which included testing them on the road, charging and discharging the batteries, and sending power back to a building on site. The company reported delivering 110 kW of power back to the grid.
Veolia partnered with Magtech, a manufacturer of electric trains and systems, to upgrade the vehicles. Andrew Sloan, Magtech’s director of engineering, said bidirectional charging has evolved over the past few years. It is now often used in the UK for private vehicles and fleets of smaller vehicles and is at the point where it doesn’t take a revolution in technology to put it to new uses.
According to Sloan, the key to further scaling is more than just technology. Widespread implementation of two-way charging for waste collection fleets will require the development of new relationships and coordination among a constellation of committed partners. These potential partners include vehicle and charging system manufacturers, control software developers, electrical service providers and waste management and collection personnel.
To prepare the two Veolia vehicles for the test, Magtech upgraded the CCS 2 equipment, as well as the high voltage DC wiring and batteries. The company also provided on-board software support for the vehicles and the CCS controller, which enabled the V2G capability.
Turbo Power Systems supplied the off-vehicle charger and developed the software to define the controls for extracting power from the vehicles. The system requires an off-vehicle charger capable of bi-directional operation to take this DC power and convert it to three-phase and feed it back into the grid.
“The advantage of DC off-boarding is that it’s really easy,” Sloan said, noting that the batteries are already discharging at a high rate when the vehicle is in operation. He described the task of extracting that current from the charging socket as “very simple in terms of hardware”.
According to Sloan, CCS 2 allows for faster charging. When paired with the right software, this makes it easy to monitor charge and discharge cycles that can change due to grid demand and fluctuating electricity prices. This capability was demonstrated during the study, with the collection vehicles providing electricity to the building where they were parked during discharge cycles and successfully recharging during charge cycles.
EVs are expanding into the US waste industry
The US waste industry hasn’t seen as much progress in two-way charging infrastructure, but manufacturers like Mack Trucks are making moves to scale up the use of electric collection vehicles. Customers like the New York City Department of Sanitation and WIN Waste Innovations are among the most recent examples of fleet operators looking to replace diesel or natural gas vehicles with electric alternatives.
Scott Barraclough, senior product manager for e-mobility at Mack, said DSNY saw this as “a way to reduce the department’s carbon footprint,” while noting other benefits. “Powering a truck with electricity instead of diesel or natural gas can provide cost savings.”
In addition to their zero-emissions profile, Barraclough said Mack’s LR Electric trucks are functionally identical to the popular LR Diesel and natural gas models. He said they can fit “good for a lot of runs,” but they also require work up front.
“You can’t just take a diesel truck off a route and put an electric vehicle in its place. We have to work with customers to look at the route to make sure the electric is suitable for that route. Range is a concern, along with charging infrastructure,” he said. “Building the truck may be the easy part, the charging infrastructure is just as important because a truck without a charger is a truck.
Additional issues include training drivers on how to use regenerative braking, which can extend the range of a vehicle’s battery.
Customers may also need to work with their utility company to prepare. Mack has options to support carriers looking to make the electric switch, including service, parts, financing and charging infrastructure facilitation. Barraclough also acknowledged that cost may be a factor and noted its availability grants and “incentive money out there for municipalities,” some of which “can make the transition to electric pretty comparable to diesel.”
WIN Waste is another company experimenting with going electric at one of its facilities in Massachusetts. In one pilot study in progress, launched in November, the company charges two Mack LRs at a bulk combustion facility in Saugus before running their routes to Boston. “Similar to what Veolia does in London, which the company describes as a ‘perfect circular loop’, the waste collected by WIN goes to its facilities and generates electricity to charge vehicles.”
Chief Operating Officer Marieke Curley said via email that this pilot offers a unique local opportunity while also fitting the company’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality. It was supported in part by a state and federal grant.
“The proximity of the Saugus facility to the city of Boston helps maximize battery performance while serving as many customers as possible. This renewable electricity generation allows us to create a circular economic model with our EV program,” he said.
Look forward
As electric vehicles continue to become more common in the US waste industry, with states such as California required in the coming years, infrastructure charging and vehicle performance will be important areas to watch.
WIN said it is still too early in the pilot project to fully assess feasibility, but early results are promising.
“Perhaps the biggest milestone so far has been our customers’ enthusiasm for offering a service that can so clearly advance their sustainability goals without any extra effort on their part,” said Curley.
Andrew Meintz, lead engineer for electric vehicle charging and grid integration at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said one of the challenges facing widespread adoption of V2G technology in the U.S. is getting everyone in the room to agree on connection standards and communication.
Sloan believes that these standards in controller communications and logic will eventually crystallize around the methods and products of the market leaders. Both Magtech, Mack and others say they plan to continue focusing on this area as charging technology develops.
In waste collection, as standards are developed and “technology improves, the number of routes where it is appropriate to use electric vehicles will expand, until electric becomes the norm rather than the exception,” Barraclough said.
For Veolia, the next phase in the V2G trial will start later this year. The company will test V2G-equipped trucks running real-world collection routes and performing their normal duties. Queruau believes these tests will prove the economic model, show conclusively that bi-directional charging does not reduce battery life, and help demonstrate that “it can all be done without interfering with the basic waste collection service.”