Funding boost to transition heavy vehicles to electric

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has made $100 million in funding available under its Driving the Nation program to support the transitioning of heavy vehicles to electric.

ARENA’s focus areas for this round of funding will include projects that support high-impact demonstrations and deployments of electric trucks; the deployment of heavy vehicle charging solutions; and other innovations to encourage the uptake of battery electric vehicles, regardless of size.

ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the heavy transport sector has an important role to play in reducing the environmental impact of moving goods.

“The heavy vehicle market has matured significantly over the past year in relation to battery electric vehicles, particularly vehicle availability and infrastructure,” he said.

“However, there are still significant hurdles including upfront costs for operators, challenges with charging technology and infrastructure, as well as the lack of real-world data.”

Miller said transport currently accounts for about one-fifth of Australia’s CO₂ emissions, with heavy vehicles having a significant share of the transport emissions pool.

“We know that customer demand across different modes of transport will continue to increase, with the transport sector expected to become Australia’s largest source of emissions by 2030,” he explained.

As part of a previous funding round, ARENA is also providing $28.6 million to two heavy vehicle decarbonisation projects run by Linfox and Toll respectively. This will have the impact of unlocking more than $124 million in investment into freight decarbonisation. Both projects were funded under the 2022 Driving the Nation focus areas.

Linfox will receive $19.6 million to deploy 26 battery electric trucks and associated charging infrastructure across three distribution centres in Queensland, South Australia and Victoria.

The trucks will be deployed over three years to a range of customers across metropolitan and regional routes, with the aim of validating the performance of heavy EV trucks over longer distances, and multiplying duty cycles per day and at scale.

“As an early adopter of electric vehicles, Linfox is proud to be partnering with the federal government to grow our electric fleet and accelerate efforts to decarbonise the logistics and supply chain in Australia,” said Linfox CEO Australia and New Zealand Mark Mazurek.

ARENA will also provide Toll with up to $9 million to support its ‘Project TruckVolt’, which will roll out 28 battery electric trucks and required infrastructure at 10 customer and Toll-owned sites across Australia.

Alan Beacham, Toll Group Managing Director, said the project was one of the largest corporate investments in heavy electric vehicles in Australia.

“The funding from ARENA supports an important part of our broader strategy to optimise the environmental sustainability of our operations, and we’re delighted to be supporting our customers through a shared commitment to decarbonising their supply chains without needing to rely solely on carbon offsets,” he said.

Miller added that supporting both Linfox and Toll to electrify their heavy vehicle fleet was a significant milestone as ARENA pursues its goal to decarbonise transport.

“By transitioning to electric vehicles, not only are these companies able to reduce their carbon footprint, but it also sets a new standard for sustainability in freight,” he said.

“This is what our Driving the Nation program is about — providing support to businesses to electrify their fleets, and in turn, accelerating the uptake of electric vehicles on our roads.”

The new focus areas under the Driving the Nation Program are now open to applications. ARENA will also be hosting an informative webinar on 19 November; to register, click here.

Image credit: iStock.com/XH4D