Oregon utility Pacific General Electric (“PGE”) is highlighting the environmental, health, and grid benefits to electrifying medium- and heavy-duty commercial trucks, calling the battery-backed big rigs “batteries on wheels.”
Earlier this month, Oregon hosted its first, fleet-focused electric ride-and-drive event, bringing everything from Class 8 electric semi trucks and medium-duty “last mile” delivery trucks to battery-powered equipment assets like wheel loaders and excavators together in one place so the state’s fleet operators (and fleet buyers) could experience the latest generation of commercial EVs for themselves.
More importantly, Portland utility PGE was also on-hand, along with local NBC News affiliate KGW8, to address one of the most prevalent myths spread by EV detractors: the one that says EVs can overload the energy grid.
PGE transportation electrification manager Karla Hendrickson shut that nonsense down decisively, touting the electric trucks’ ability to help support the grid during peak load events and calling them out as, “grid ready assets,” capable of helping the utility manage periods of high electricity demand while keeping costs low. “Electric school buses are particularly intriguing,” adds said Hendrickson. “Their schedules are predictable and they can spend long stretches parked.”
PGE is already testing the ability to dispatch energy from the state’s deployed fleet of school buses back to the grid.
Big rig, big battery
There are nearly 150,000 registered EVs operating on Oregon roads today, but while the push for electric passenger vehicles gains steam and the electric charging infrastructure to support them is being built out along the state’s travel corridors, the push to electrify medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles is just getting started.
As it gains steam, the push to electrify these vehicles could give the utility access to more stored energy, keeping ratepayers’ bills low, insulating fleets from the wild swings of diesel fuel prices, and (of course) help Oregoons Oregonians breathe a bit easier. Literally.
“These heavy trucks and buses represent a relatively small amount of the fleet of vehicles on the road in Oregon,” explains Gerick Kransky, with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. “But they represent a disproportionate amount of the emissions that we deal with from transportation.”
SOURCE: KGW8 News.
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