Electrifying waste truck routes with CURE

Customer Case Study

Electrifying waste truck routes with CURE

15 Trucks
2.3 MW
Eindhoven, Netherlands
CSS

©VOR-J. Bollwein, 2022.

Challenge

Cure Afvalbeheer is a Dutch waste management company that is 100% owned by the three municipalities and cities of Eindhoven, Valkenswaard and Geldrop-Mierlo. Cure has set itself the goal to reduce their emissions on various levels and to stand up for a future worth living. In particular, the focus is on reducing the CO2 emissions by their trucks, in which the businesses plan is for all trucks to be powered by electricity by 2030. Together with Heliox, since 2020, they have charging infrastructure for their trucks that needs to be expanded to enable more vehicles to be charged.

Solution

During the first phase of this project in 2020, Heliox helped CURE to have a charging solution for their first electric truck. For the first scope of this project Heliox installed a 300kw charging solution to support CURE to start their switch to electric trucks.  

In 2023, CURE expanded its electric fleet to 15 waste collection vehicles. To achieve this, Heliox provided 8 Flex chargers with a total capacity of 2.0 MW and 16 outlets. These Flex chargers have a power range between 180 and 360 kW, with installed dispenser columns of 250 A and 500 A, enabling fast charging. This variety of charger types gives Cure maximum flexibility for opportunity and depot charging.

In addition, load management has been implemented to charge the electric trucks as quickly as possible, considering the limited grid connection. Moreover, energy management maximizes the use of locally produced solar energy to ensure that CURE’s vehicles are being charged as sustainably as possible. Finally, passive imbalance market smart charging will be applied to reduce charging costs as much as possible.

Results
Highest Uptime
Zero Emissions
Industry's Quietes

With the new upgrade charging infrastructure CURE can charge their truck in a fast, reliable and flexible way in their own depot. With this new upgrade CURE will be one of the first waste management companies to be fully electric, currently with electric trucks and plans to expand it in 2024 to 35.

More importantly, this new charging infrastructure has proven to be positively disruptive in breaking traditional patterns of waste management and has enabled Cure to work in line with national and regional climate policy objectives.

For CURE even one day of downtime is unacceptable, as waste is continuously generated and needs immediate management. The use of electric vehicles allows them collect waste at different times without disturbing people in densely populated residential areas. This desired benefit allows for two shifts instead of one, reducing the need for more trucks

Download our electric truck report
Project Description

Heliox and TU/e ​​aim to develop an integrated solution that makes charging heavy electric vehicles accessible without negative consequences for local electricity networks. Together, we want to achieve this by developing and demonstrating a new, multiple and dynamic charging system for heavy electric vehicles that is equipped with software-controlled stabilization to absorb disturbances on the local energy grid.

The intended system will consist of a dynamically configurable charging system based on modules that can be connected in parallel, each with three 60 kW outputs. With this they want to be able to distribute the loading capacity dynamically over several vehicles. The charging system can therefore be used for opportunity charging up to 360 kW for a single vehicle as well as for regular charging of several vehicles.

In addition, smart software and a microcontroller board are being developed. The converter of the charging system can be used via this software to compensate for grid disturbances. The disturbances are neutralized via a low impedance path. This allows losses on the grid to be converted into usable energy, while improving the voltage quality of the grid. In fact, the system completely takes over the function of current power filters on the basis of smart control.

Cure Afvalbeheer is a Dutch waste management company that is 100% owned by the three municipalities and cities of Eindhoven, Valkenswaard and Geldrop-Mierlo. Cure has set itself the goal to reduce their emissions on various levels and to stand up for a future worth living. In particular, the focus is on reducing the CO2 emissions by their trucks, in which the businesses plan is for all trucks to be powered by electricity by 2030. Together with Heliox, since 2020, they have charging infrastructure for their trucks that needs to be expanded to enable more vehicles to be charged.

During the first phase of this project in 2020, Heliox helped CURE to have a charging solution for their first electric truck. For the first scope of this project Heliox installed a 300kw charging solution to support CURE to start their switch to electric trucks.  

In 2023, CURE expanded its electric fleet to 15 waste collection vehicles. To achieve this, Heliox provided 8 Flex chargers with a total capacity of 2.0 MW and 16 outlets. These Flex chargers have a power range between 180 and 360 kW, with installed dispenser columns of 250 A and 500 A, enabling fast charging. This variety of charger types gives Cure maximum flexibility for opportunity and depot charging.

In addition, load management has been implemented to charge the electric trucks as quickly as possible, considering the limited grid connection. Moreover, energy management maximizes the use of locally produced solar energy to ensure that CURE’s vehicles are being charged as sustainably as possible. Finally, passive imbalance market smart charging will be applied to reduce charging costs as much as possible.

Highest Uptime
Zero Emissions
Industry's Quietes

With the new upgrade charging infrastructure CURE can charge their truck in a fast, reliable and flexible way in their own depot. With this new upgrade CURE will be one of the first waste management companies to be fully electric, currently with electric trucks and plans to expand it in 2024 to 35.

More importantly, this new charging infrastructure has proven to be positively disruptive in breaking traditional patterns of waste management and has enabled Cure to work in line with national and regional climate policy objectives.

For CURE even one day of downtime is unacceptable, as waste is continuously generated and needs immediate management. The use of electric vehicles allows them collect waste at different times without disturbing people in densely populated residential areas. This desired benefit allows for two shifts instead of one, reducing the need for more trucks

Download our electric truck report