The Swedish government is one step closer to its goal of having an energy-efficient, fossil-free vehicle fleet by 2030. The Swedish Transport Administration has approved support for the Gävle Electric Road project, and in February 2016, Scania will start testing electric trucks on the electric road.
The project will demonstrate and evaluate conductive technology, which involves electrical transmission through overhead lines above vehicles equipped with a pantograph power collector.
Scania’s trucks will operate goods transport services on a 1.24-mile test route, which is being built between the Port of Gävle and Storvik along European highway 16. The demonstration facility for conductive technology is part of the Electric Roads Project, one of the largest innovation procurement projects currently under way in Europe. In cooperation with the Swedish Transport Administration, the Swedish Energy Agency and VINNOVA, industry and academia will demonstrate and evaluate electric roads as a possible method for reducing the use of fossil energy in the transport system.
The trucks are equipped with an electric hybrid powertrain developed by Scania.
Power to the trucks is transferred from overhead lines through a pantograph power collector mounted on the frame behind the cab. This technology has been developed by Siemens, which has been conducting trials of electrified trucks with Scania at its research facility outside Berlin since 2013.
The possibility of operating heavy trucks using electricity in this way means that the truck’s flexibility to perform transport tasks using electricity and as a regular hybrid truck is maintained, while up to 80–90 percent of the fossil fuel emissions disappear.
The project consists of about $9.27 million in public financing combined with about $5.78 million in co-financing from the business community and the Gävleborg region.
In 2013, the Volvo Group tested a program to supply electric power to trucks and buses via power lines built into the surface of the road.
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