
Voltera, the Palo Alto, California-based charging-as-a-Service (CaaS) provider, has been selected to build a major portion of a 6.5 Megawatt (MW), $44 million charging depot for medium- and heavy-duty trucks that'll be part of an inland port facility in Utah's Salt Lake Valley region.
[Related: Voltera CEO: 'Megawatt charging can't come soon enough']
The project's funding comes from the previously announced Department of Energy (DOE)'s SuperTruck Charge initiative. Utah State University's ASPIRE Engineering Research Center will receive $22 million in DOE funding and another $15 million from industry investment to establish a reliable and scalable charging infrastructure which could be replicated nationwide.
[Related: DOE invests $68M for HD truck charging infrastructure]
Upon completion, the site will support freight movement in a region of the country where there's major opportunity for commercial truck charging infrastructure expansion.
Tom Ashley, Voltera vice president of government and utility affairs, told Clean Trucking that "Utah is quickly becoming an important innovation hub, and the region is primed to develop and leverage technologies to support efficient fleet operations and mitigate freight impact on Salt Lake Valley's air quality."
The depot will be impressive. "The vision for the project includes 12 Megawatts (MW) of charging equipment, enabling 9 MW of peak charging. This would be achieved through a combination of 4.5 MW from the grid and 4.5 MW from battery energy storage systems," Ashley added.
Utah's Supercharge initiative
Demand and where to build are key components of CaaS infrastructure, planning, and investment. The Salt Lake Valley development is part of the Clean Ports Program, a $3 billion fund that was included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Voltera's role, says Ashley, is to provide and install the necessary charging equipment where it's needed.
[Related: Voltera secures $100M financing for charging infrastructure expansion]
"Within the context of the Clean Ports Program, there’s planned funding for a number of electric trucks [and charging hubs]. There’s a natural demand element in this region which creates opportunities for infrastructure investment and fleet testing and potential scaling up," Ashley adds. "[Looking ahead,] there's opportunity to expand the footprint of this charging facility."
ASPIRE director Regan Zane says that "this project will demonstrate the business model and economic viability for charging-as-a-service and fleet electrification in the state of Utah. Together with our project partners, we will be proving that these solutions are scalable beyond government incentives and have strong industry support."
Along with Voltera and ASPIRE, additional project partners include PacifiCorp, Eaton, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Worsening air quality
Despite the Trump administration's ongoing policy offensive to eliminate electric vehicle mandates and subsidies, Voltera and others remain steadfast - especially given the Salt Lake Valley's worsening air quality.
"I’ll just note that the Salt Lake Valley is experiencing worsening air quality and there’s quite a lot of local impetus to addressing air quality and there’s a lot of opportunities to minimize, reduce, the contribution that freight transportation makes to those conditions and a whole host of other things," Ashley stressed. "This isn’t California and there's potentially worsening air quality in some parts [of the region] but there’s a lot of local excitement regarding the opportunity for electric trucking and reducing contributing to air quality in the region."