SolarEdge Case Study - EV Fleet for European Retailer

SolarEdge, utilizing Xendee’s platform, helped a European retailer replace diesel trucks with EVs by expanding on-site solar and battery storage, enabling high-power charging without costly grid upgrades.

Figure 1: The DESIGN user interface for the EV fleet project. This satellite map of the project site enables asset placement and estimates project-specific variables, including cable lengths, available space, and weather patterns. Here, the utility connection point serves as the central node, connecting two solar arrays, a building load, battery storage, an EV charging station, and the associated fleet load.

Challenge: 

A European Retailer wants to replace some of their ICE Trucks with EV Trucks in one of its Logistics Centers. These trucks have a tight dispatch schedule and are allowed charging time of only one to two hours per stop. In order to meet the charging demand within the available timeframe the necessary charging infrastructure would require that they expand the grid connection to almost double capacity. The client asked SolarEdge Enterprise Services Group to explore the potential of expanding existing solar array installation and adding battery energy storage systems to reduce the capacity expansion or avoid it altogether. 

The Site:

The retail client’s trucks currently run on Diesel. As more and more EV trucks become available in the market, the need to take steps to replace aging Diesel fleets with EVs will continue to become more prevalent. For these electric trucks, ‘fueling’ will no longer take place on the road at a gas station but at the logistics hub with the high power DC charging infrastructure which will be built there. In most cases this would require an expensive expansion to the grid connection and building a new transformer station. The alternative of adding more PV, charging and buffering the energy in the batteries, and discharging them to enable on-site Truck charging might be the more economical approach.

Solution: 

SolarEdge utilized Xendee to properly size the additional PV and BESS added to the site.  Xendee specifically enabled them to:

• Ensure EV Truck charging is feasible at the sites when EV-Trucks are connected to the charging infrastructure for only one or two hours.
• Determine the number of units of SolarEdge Helios high power batteries that were needed to enable buffering for EV-charging.
• Generate a battery dispatch schedule by considering on site generation, ToU Tariffs, and site demand specifically for EV-Truck charging.
• Explore additional revenue streams for the client like demand charge reduction.

Figure 2: Optimized dispatch schedule for the project site. This chart illustrates ideal energy generation, utility purchases, and battery storage management for each hour to meet financial projections set during the optimization phase. Here, three days of operation are shown, with utility purchases scheduled at night when the solar system is inactive, and the battery charged during the day for use during peak nighttime charging. This approach smooths demand spikes, reducing demand charges by maintaining steady utility purchases throughout the day.

Results: 

Running time series optimization showed that if 3 units of SolarEdge Helios batteries are installed, it would enable the site to charge these from the added solar array and the grid to enable EV truck charging. It turned out that they could avoid the expansion of the grid connection and in addition also significantly reduce grid fees even though the site demand would increase significantly due to EV truck charging. The major takeaways are:

• EV-Truck charging is feasible on site
• Adding more solar and a high power battery avoids expanding the grid connection.
• Adding these technologies on site requires more CAPEX but has a faster ROI, more OPEX savings, better IRR, and NPV.