Sweden recently opened a 1.25 mile stretch of electrified highway in an effort to have a fossil fuel-free transit system by 2030 and to help curb emissions from tractor trailers.
Truckers driving rigs equipped with the “eHighway” technology can engage the electrical grid or use the diesel their engines usually run on. Truckers can engage the system where it’s available and operate on electricity just like a trolley, meaning less cost for the trucking company as well as lower emissions for the country. Where the system is not yet available, truckers can still run their engines using diesel just like conventional trucks.
In a collaboration with Swedish truck makers Scania and Siemens, the Swedish government designated a section of the E16 highway as its first “eHighway” system, according to Forbes.
During the two-year trial, two diesel hybrid trucks will be attached to the “catenary” — the cable from which trolley lines and such are suspended — and will operate both on the electrical grid, as well as through its engine (where the grid does not yet exist). The trucks will be fitted with a pantograph — a jointed framework conveying a current to a train — which moves up and down at the drivers command, to maintain contact with the line.
If the overhead cables are available, the drivers could connect using the pantograph — if there is no such apparatus installed, drivers can still use their diesel engines as normal.
“The eHighway is twice as efficient as internal combustion engines,” Siemens explained in a Wednesday press release. “The Siemens innovation supplies trucks with power from an overhead contact line. This means that not only is energy consumption cut in half but also local air pollution is reduced.”
Siemens officials also plan to use “regenerative” braking to help put power back on the grid — this is a system where kinetic energy is transferred to the electric grid to help keep operating costs down.
“Power regeneration is the process of recovering kinetic energy created by a motor during stopping or braking and converting that energy to electricity, and feeding it back into the power grid. This is especially effective in applications with frequent starts and stops, deceleration with high inertia load, and overhauling torque applications such as a downhill conveyor,” Siemens explains on its website.
Since the majority of goods in any country are shipped via trucks, the move seeks to drastically cut down on CO2 emissions.
“By far the greatest part of the goods transported in Sweden goes on the road, but only a limited part of the goods can be moved to other traffic types. That is why we must free the trucks from their dependence on fossil fuels, so that they can be of use also in the future,” Anders Berndtsson, chief strategist of the Swedish Transport Administration said in a statement to Forbes. “Electric roads offer this possibility and are an excellent complement to the transport system.”
“Transportation accounts for more than one-third of the Scandinavian country’s carbon dioxide emissions, nearly half of which come from freight transport.” PC Mag wrote in a piece published Friday. “So Sweden wants to operate a fossil-fuel-independent transit system by 2030.”
Siemens announced plans to trial an eHighway system in California as well.
“As the first and second busiest container ports in the U.S., Long Beach and Los Angeles can benefit tremendously from the eHighway system,” Matthias Schlelein of Siemens said in a press release earlier in June. “Significantly reducing emissions from commercial trucks that normally contribute to much of the air pollution in this region,”
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