Is green electricity subsidising rail freight?

[HSTEd]

Government's gone extremely quiet on this - I personally think this will not happen in the UK because
- we lack true long-haul road freight of the kind you see on Mainland Europe & North America
- it's starting to look like the majority of HGV mileage in UK can be covered by battery electric with charging at depots etc.,
- Government (at least the one we have) lacks the appetite for this kind of public sector investment

It will probably depend if the magical batteries they are hoping for actually appear in the next few years.
If it doesn't, eventually they will panic and place the order for the eHighway scheme, or more likely try to apply ever increasing fudges to the budget.

By the same token, they aren't going to provide the billions in additional subsidies required to significantly expand rail freight operations as a tool for decarbonisation.

Stress on roads from vehicles is a function of a 4th power law. Some beermat maths:
Car estimate 1,500 kg, so 750 kg per axle
HGV might be 44 t on 6 axles, so 7,300 kg per axle
A difference of about 10 times. The 4th power law means that 10 times the weight leads to 10,000 times more road stress (and damage).
It also matters how far vehicles are driven. According to DfT stats at https://roadtraffic.dft.gov.uk/summary the figure for cars is 244 billion vehicle kilometres, whereas for HGV it's only 17.4 billion vehicle kilometres.

However, if each HGV km is 10,000 more damaging, then the relative damage to the highway is comparable to 174,000 billion vehicle kilometers travelled by cars. 244 is <0.1% of 174,000...

Now there's a lot of estimates here, but I think it's basically saying that nearly all road degradation not from age-induced decay or materials, vegetation or botched streetworks repairs is probably down to HGV.

Age and weather-related degradation is probably a significant fraction of road repair cost though, especially on secondary roads that consume a lot of the budget.
It also assumes that damage repair costs (or indeed overall road spending) are entirely linear with respect to a "damage" parameter, which is probably a bad assumption.

A very large fraction of HGV traffic is on the Strategic Road Network, and thus must cost no more than £5bn given that's what the entire SRN costs.

There doesn't seem to be much evidence that there is some enormous hidden subsidy to road freight operations.

...The M6 Toll operators know all about the fourth power law. So that price is set to a point that deters the majority of HGV traffic. There is probably a tipping point price below this where it would suddenly start to look like good value for HGV operators, and costs (from road damage) would increase much faster than revenue. Set it much higher, and suddenly people like regulators start getting interested and they don't want that.

Or they are just charging what they believe people in a hurry would pay to avoid the congestion on the real M6.
However, I realise we are wandering off topic so we should probably stop.

 

[Class 317]

In answer to the original question the answer is definitely not. If NR were to enter into a power purchasing agreement with a renewable energy provider they could secure a stable long term price reducing the operators cost although the time may have passed for that one for now with prices being so high even for renewables given the inflation of the last couple of years.

One thing rail freight will need to be careful of going forward is that if they continue with diesel traction their environment benefits will be steadily eroded over time by the roll out of electric HGV's.

With existing technology they are already showing impressive operating cost savings compared to diesel HGV's in many use cases particularly for bulky but mid to low weight loads over middle distances.

 

[furnessvale]

There doesn't seem to be much evidence that there is some enormous hidden subsidy to road freight operations.

On the contrary, the NERA report, produced by government, taking several years and running to hundreds of pages, comprehensively demonstrated that the heaviest HGVs did not at the time cover their costs to society.

Immediately people will say this report dates from 2000 and is therefore out of date, so we need to examine what has changed in the meantime to change its conclusions.

Firstly, after the report was published, but not because of it, HGVs and farmers blockaded roads and oil refineries. Gov response at the time was to REDUCE taxation on HGVs to appease the industry. This reduction has never been reinstated.

Secondly, since 2000 taxation on HGVs has been virtually static as year after year excise duty on fuel has been frozen.

Thirdly, from 2000 to 2024 inflation has risen by 82%. Thus the real level of taxation on HGVs has effectively reduced by 82% over the same period.

Finally, to be fair, one change has occurred in the opposite direction to increase HGV charges. The road user levy is a fixed charge on HGVs and currently stands at £576 per annum on the heaviest HGVs. Given that a max weight HGV costs £151,000 pa to run, before fuel costs, £576 can be considered a miniscule proportion of an 82% reduction in taxation.

Over the same perion, Track access charges for railfreight, with a few exceptions, have risen by inflation.

 

[Meerkat]

Fast charging lorries is a nice idea……..until you add in the costs of getting a massive power supply into a service station in the middle of nowhere!
Considering the grief the railway has getting electrification through safety standards I just can’t see how slinging wires over the motorway network is ever going to happen!

 

[Class 317]

Fast charging lorries is a nice idea……..until you add in the costs of getting a massive power supply into a service station in the middle of nowhere!
Considering the grief the railway has getting electrification through safety standards I just can’t see how slinging wires over the motorway network is ever going to happen!

I don't think they will need to sling wires above motorways. Far cheaper and easier to charge from charge points located at both service stations, industrial estates, distribution centres etc during mandatory driver rest periods and during periods when HGV's are being unloaded.

 

[SamYeager]

I don't think they will need to sling wires above motorways. Far cheaper and easier to charge from charge points located at both service stations, industrial estates, distribution centres etc during mandatory driver rest periods and during periods when HGV's are being unloaded.

I believe there's already a large backlog for the installation electric chargers at service stations, for cars, because the national grid is unable to provide the required power. Equally, I gather there's a large backlog for connectiions to the national grid for wind and solar farms because the national grid is currently unable to cope with the additional variable power inputs until more infrastructire work is carried out. That's all before considering the rather larger power requirements for HGVs.

It's all very well coming up with these "solutions" but implementing them will be neither cheap nor quick. Just how far will a HGV travel on electric power before it needs recharging bearing in mind that the more batteries carried by a HGV the more its load carring capacity will be reduced? Just how long will it take to recharge a HGV batteries?

 

[HSTEd]

Fast charging lorries is a nice idea……..until you add in the costs of getting a massive power supply into a service station in the middle of nowhere!
Considering the grief the railway has getting electrification through safety standards I just can’t see how slinging wires over the motorway network is ever going to happen!

Most of the trouble with rail electrification is not for simple technical reasons, and you can grab an awful lot of HGV traffic with a comparatively small amount of wiring.

The top end traffic estimates are direct decarbonisation of 65% of HGV vehicle-km for only 15,000 lane-km of electrification.
Add batteries that can be recharged on the move and it is likely decarbonisation would be almost total.

Total decarbonisatoin would be nearly ten times the freight traffic carried on the railway for those 15,000 lane km.

As to safety standards, the motorway has several advantages in terms of more permissive laneclosure requirements, much greater clearances and benefiting from the dispersed nature of the load allowing ~750Vdc overheads that have no high voltage equipment in them at all.

 

[Class 317]

I believe there's already a large backlog for the installation electric chargers at service stations, for cars, because the national grid is unable to provide the required power. Equally, I gather there's a large backlog for connectiions to the national grid for wind and solar farms because the national grid is currently unable to cope with the additional variable power inputs until more infrastructire work is carried out. That's all before considering the rather larger power requirements for HGVs.

It's all very well coming up with these "solutions" but implementing them will be neither cheap nor quick. Just how far will a HGV travel on electric power before it needs recharging bearing in mind that the more batteries carried by a HGV the more its load carring capacity will be reduced? Just how long will it take to recharge a HGV batteries?

The backlog issue for national grid is caused mainly by long approval processes for new infrastructure not actual capacity to install the required infrastructure physically. It also relates to specific areas of the grid and not the whole country.

The issues with car chargers relate to local distribution network operators grids not the national grid and again in many areas are not a problem due to falling demand.

Charging time is currently around 1.5 hours for 4.5 hours use with 44 tonnes. However most loads are less than 44 tonnes due to loads being bulky.

 

[Meerkat]

I believe there's already a large backlog for the installation electric chargers at service stations, for cars, because the national grid is unable to provide the required power. Equally, I gather there's a large backlog for connectiions to the national grid for wind and solar farms because the national grid is currently unable to cope with the additional variable power inputs until more infrastructire work is carried out. That's all before considering the rather larger power requirements for HGVs.

It's all very well coming up with these "solutions" but implementing them will be neither cheap nor quick. Just how far will a HGV travel on electric power before it needs recharging bearing in mind that the more batteries carried by a HGV the more its load carring capacity will be reduced? Just how long will it take to recharge a HGV batteries?

Are service stations out in the sticks anywhere near a grid point that could cope with a whole lorry park full of fast charging lorries and cars?
An HGV with that amount of battery storage on board is going to create one hell of a fire!

Most of the trouble with rail electrification is not for simple technical reasons, and you can grab an awful lot of HGV traffic with a comparatively small amount of wiring.

The top end traffic estimates are direct decarbonisation of 65% of HGV vehicle-km for only 15,000 lane-km of electrification.
Add batteries that can be recharged on the move and it is likely decarbonisation would be almost total.

Total decarbonisatoin would be nearly ten times the freight traffic carried on the railway for those 15,000 lane km.

As to safety standards, the motorway has several advantages in terms of more permissive laneclosure requirements, much greater clearances and benefiting from the dispersed nature of the load allowing ~750Vdc overheads that have no high voltage equipment in them at all.

Much greater clearances? Have you seen how close those max height monster trunking trucks get to the overbridges?! Its a bit scary when you follow them! And all those parapets will need parapet work.
Would the wires be the equivalent of trams or needing full fencing etc?
The consequences of a dewirement on a busy motorway full of motorists who are not locked in......

 

[HSTEd]

Much greater clearances? Have you seen how close those max height monster trunking trucks get to the overbridges?! Its a bit scary when you follow them! And all those parapets will need parapet work.
Would the wires be the equivalent of trams or needing full fencing etc?
The consequences of a dewirement on a busy motorway full of motorists who are not locked in......

The lines would be analogous to trolleybus practice and would consist of ~750V (the German trials are at 670V nominal) circuits with both out and return.
The required clearances for such cables in UK tramway practice are mechanical, in an electrical sense they are zero (in essence, don't let the cable touch anything metal and you are fine). The clearances under most bridges are likely already sufficient given the low operating speed of ~90kph.

How likely is a dewirement to avoid a trip of the circuit breakers or other detection measures? Given the two conductor system it is probably amenable to RCD detection.

How is dewirement risk handled in tramways or trolleybus systems today?

 

[Meerkat]

The lines would be analogous to trolleybus practice and would consist of ~750V (the German trials are at 670V nominal) circuits with both out and return.
The required clearances for such cables in UK tramway practice are mechanical, in an electrical sense they are zero (in essence, don't let the cable touch anything metal and you are fine). The clearances under most bridges are likely already sufficient given the low operating speed of ~90kph.

How likely is a dewirement to avoid a trip of the circuit breakers or other detection measures? Given the two conductor system it is probably amenable to RCD detection.

How is dewirement risk handled in tramways or trolleybus systems today?

Can't comment on the more technical stuff. Trams have the advantage that the users are all controlled by the operating company, rather than lots of operators of variable skills and maintenance.
There would be some major pushback on wiring across the countryside, and some interesting wind issues on some very exposed motorways.
Do the wires only cover lane 1? Even if so the structures will need to be big to reach out from a safe position beyond the hard shoulder.

 

[HSTEd]

Can't comment on the more technical stuff. Trams have the advantage that the users are all controlled by the operating company, rather than lots of operators of variable skills and maintenance.

Well operation of the pantograph system, which is capable of moving around independently of the vehicle, is under the control of an onboard computer rather than the driver.
If the driver attempts to leave the lane the system will automatically retract with no further driver action.
Maintenance is something of a concern, but inspections for HGVs are obviously already required and could include checks of such a system.

There would be some major pushback on wiring across the countryside, and some interesting wind issues on some very exposed motorways.
Do the wires only cover lane 1? Even if so the structures will need to be big to reach out from a safe position beyond the hard shoulder.

The current trial systems only cover lane 1 yes, the idea being that lorries spend the majority of their time there.
Even if lorries occasionally overtake having coverage of lane one would ensure that a lorry can certainly reach its destination without expending battery charge on the route if needed.

The structures in use in the German trial do not look enormous, but neither do they look small.

 

[Class 317]

Are service stations out in the sticks anywhere near a grid point that could cope with a whole lorry park full of fast charging lorries and cars?
An HGV with that amount of battery storage on board is going to create one hell of a fire!

Much greater clearances? Have you seen how close those max height monster trunking trucks get to the overbridges?! Its a bit scary when you follow them! And all those parapets will need parapet work.
Would the wires be the equivalent of trams or needing full fencing etc?
The consequences of a dewirement on a busy motorway full of motorists who are not locked in......

The Grid connections to most service stations are not as bad as most people assume and required connection capacity for HGV and LGV charging is actually not as great as many assume.

For example the number of HGV'S requiring charging at one time is 20 which would seem to be a reasonable assumption in a busy service area. Each one requires 500kw's. That's 10 KW in total required. In practical terms that's like boiling around 3300 kettles at the same time.

Most service stations will need an upgrade but then again they will need one for car chargers in many cases as well.

Their are plans a foot to rewire a number of existing transmission lines at both National Grid level and DNO level offering an increase of about 30% in capacity. Also the introduction of real time condition monitoring is estimated to potentially increase capacity of existing transmission lines by between 25- 50 % although this is currently going through regulatory approval.

The cost of grid connections for miles of over motorway wires would be far greater.

 

[edwin_m]

The Grid connections to most service stations are not as bad as most people assume and required connection capacity for HGV and LGV charging is actually not as great as many assume.

For example the number of HGV'S requiring charging at one time is 20 which would seem to be a reasonable assumption in a busy service area. Each one requires 500kw's. That's 10 KW in total required. In practical terms that's like boiling around 3300 kettles at the same time.

Most service stations will need an upgrade but then again they will need one for car chargers in many cases as well.

Their are plans a foot to rewire a number of existing transmission lines at both National Grid level and DNO level offering an increase of about 30% in capacity. Also the introduction of real time condition monitoring is estimated to potentially increase capacity of existing transmission lines by between 25- 50 % although this is currently going through regulatory approval.

The cost of grid connections for miles of over motorway wires would be far greater.

Bib - should be MW!

I think the cost of grid connections for miles of over motorway wires would actually be less. Over time they are demanding the same amount of power for the same number of trucks, in fact a bit less because some is going direct to motors without the losses of going into the battery and out again. Also there may be somewhere along the motorway that passes near a Grid supply, so a feeder as large as necessary can just be put there as is done with railways, instead of having to arrange a relatively high power supply to the service station (although that might be needed anyway for other vehicles).

However, the total cost of the on-road electrification would be more, because of all the work needed along the route.

 

[HSTEd]

The cost of grid connections for miles of over motorway wires would be far greater.

Why?
The vast majority of motorways are not constructed in ultra rural environments, and the low load density from allowing lorries to be drawing power for the majority of their operational life will reduce peak demand considerably.

A lot of eHighway substations would likely draw power from the DNO at Low Voltage using whatever supplies are available in the local area..

The Grid connections to most service stations are not as bad as most people assume and required connection capacity for HGV and LGV charging is actually not as great as many assume.

For example the number of HGV'S requiring charging at one time is 20 which would seem to be a reasonable assumption in a busy service area. Each one requires 500kw's. That's 10 KW in total required. In practical terms that's like boiling around 3300 kettles at the same time.

10MW (20x500kW) is going to require a supply at 33kV in a lot of situations.
Also 500kW is probably at the low end for the sorts of supplies they are talking about now, there is a reason one of the lorry charging specs is called the "Megawatt Charging System".

 

[cool110]

Also there may be somewhere along the motorway that passes near a Grid supply, so a feeder as large as necessary can just be put there as is done with railways

it is likely that a lot of eHighway substations would draw power from the DNO at Low Voltage.

The German trial systems have taken the former approach with the substations linked by a 20kV 3-phase feeder.

 

[InTheEastMids]

I believe there's already a large backlog for the installation electric chargers at service stations, for cars, because the national grid is unable to provide the required power. Equally, I gather there's a large backlog for connectiions to the national grid for wind and solar farms because the national grid is currently unable to cope with the additional variable power inputs until more infrastructire work is carried out. That's all before considering the rather larger power requirements for HGVs.

All true. However...

A lot of early adopter of eHGV is "return to base" ops like supermarket deliveries from regional distribution centres and local authority bin lorries - you're not dependent on 3rd party infrastructure and not pushing the envelope in terms of range or payload. The real need for public HGV charging infrastructure is not 2024, but will obviously is going to grow, particularly post-2030 as all the easy-to-electrify uses get converted first.

There is (finally) serious investment and action starting to come forward for both transmission and renewables connections (e.g. ASTI/"Great Grid Upgrade") and Rapid Charging Fund which is going to basically spend a billion on wiring up service areas. Again this doesn't solve things overnight, but things are changing, and a 33 kV overhead line is a long way from the transmissions towers that really get NIMBYs jumping up and down. Trying to put at least one on-topic point in this post typical 11 or 33 kV overhead lines on wooden poles are much cheaper to build than a power network that has vehicles whizzing underneath it, scraping it with a pantograph.

Are service stations out in the sticks anywhere near a grid point that could cope with a whole lorry park full of fast charging lorries and cars?

Yes, they will need 11 or 33 kV upgrades (largely depending on how big the eHGV load will be) Rapid Charging Fund is now trying to spin up and get some of this delivered in the next 2-3 y.
It's also a big deal in DNO investment planning.

Trams have the advantage that the users are all controlled by the operating company, rather than lots of operators of variable skills and maintenance.

Agree on this - got to think about driver training requirements, MOT testing, how to recover from failuers.
It's not always clear that all HGV operators maintain everything to the highest standard

The German trial systems have taken the former approach with the substations linked by a 20kV 3-phase feeder.

Whilst the local substation approach was part of the plan for a UK demo (where there wouldn't be too many vehicles), I just don't think rural networks are up to the challenge in terms of load and redundancy/resilience. One of the issues being that DNOs do not really like having too much infrastructure around the strategic road network as temporary works are very expensive and difficult to arrange, so National Highways would in effect have to become a DNO and have a lot more buried cables within the highway boundary.

 

[HSTEd]

All true. However..
A lot of early adopter of eHGV is "return to base" ops like supermarket deliveries from regional distribution centres and local authority bin lorries - you're not dependent on 3rd party infrastructure and not pushing the envelope in terms of range or payload. The real need for public HGV charging infrastructure is not 2024, but will obviously is going to grow, particularly post-2030 as all the easy-to-electrify uses get converted first.

The problem is we don't have decades to sit around hoping battery electric HGVs with practical operational and economic characteristics will appear.
Decarbonisation has to be well under way by 2030, not starting to get started!

And what happens if they don't?
Waiting to be bailed out by future hypertech is not a good plan.

Whilst the local substation approach was part of the plan for a UK demo (where there wouldn't be too many vehicles), I just don't think rural networks are up to the challenge in terms of load and redundancy/resilience. One of the issues being that DNOs do not really like having too much infrastructure around the strategic road network as temporary works are very expensive and difficult to arrange, so National Highways would in effect have to become a DNO and have a lot more buried cables within the highway boundary.

Why would you need redundancy?
If the substation loses supply the substation goes off and the lorries pull down their pantographs to try again later a mile down the road.

With batteries in every vehicle as a matter of course, the loss of a short section of feeder is not a serious problem.

And the DNO cables would be in the form of overhead lines a hundred feet away in the field next to the motorway.....
Only very short lengths of cable would be anywhere near the motorway, and indeed the only thing that would need a closure to work on would be the contact system.

The thing to remember is this is not a railway, it is not the 1920s and the load is far more dispersed.
My own modelling was that the peak national draw for an eHighway system would be about ~7GW, with a load factor of around 50%. EDIT: that is less than a megawatt per road/route-km

7GW doesn't get you many megawatt class fast chargers!
There are 530,000 registered HGVs in the UK, you are going to need tens of thousands of chargers given how intensively they are operated.

 

[al78]

Decarbonisation has to be well under way by 2030, not starting to get started!

Yes but Britain so we know that's what will happen.

 

[AM9]

Their are plans a foot to rewire a number of existing transmission lines at both National Grid level and DNO level offering an increase of about 30% in capacity. Also the introduction of real time condition monitoring is estimated to potentially increase capacity of existing transmission lines by between 25- 50 % although this is currently going through regulatory approval.

Looking at a map of the grid, several of the main trunk routes follow the strategic motorway network, e.g. the A1/A1M is quite well aligned for just north of Stevenage to Newcastle, and even where the paths do diverge, they are generally no more than 10-5 miles from the nearest lines. Similarly, the M1/M6, M4, and M2 have quite good alignments. Where there are gaps nearer to large metropolitan areas, the 275kV lines provide good alignment, indeed, the northen half of the M25 has a 275kV path almost parallel.
Much of the upgrade to the 275kV routes will be by replacing the steel arms from which the wires hang by insulated arms where the wires are both higher and less susceptible to diisplacement by crosswinds. This will allow much of the 275kV routes to be upgraded to 400kV, giving up to a 45% increase in maximum power. A similar study on some 132kV routes in Scotland indicates that there may be scop to continue thaat on some heavil loaded DNO infrastructure.

 

[Meerkat]

Well operation of the pantograph system, which is capable of moving around independently of the vehicle, is under the control of an onboard computer rather than the driver.

The lorries have pantographs moving up and down and side to side? That's a lot to go wrong and haul the wires down......
No doubt the hauliers will soon be demanding even heavier lorries so that the battery weight doesn't reduce the load carried....as if we dont have enough potholes!

 

[furnessvale]

No doubt the hauliers will soon be demanding even heavier lorries so that the battery weight doesn't reduce the load carried....as if we dont have enough potholes!

Already asked for and granted by government. Mustn't disadvantage HGVs against rail!