Throughout the upcoming months, we will be publishing a series of interviews with each of our ten pilots to offer a peek behind the scenes of the exciting technological developments happening in the context of the SOLAR-MOVE project.
We kick off in Denmark, where a charging hub for commercial EV trucks is set to combat the challenges of grid capacity for heavy-duty EV charging.
Can you briefly introduce the organisations involved?
DTU builds the simulation environment used to design and test energy management strategies and operating scenarios before deployment, and is responsible for the pilot’s use case documentation, KPI tracking, and deliverables.
Alex Andersen owns the depot and vehicle fleet, manages day-to-day fleet operations, and provides the operational knowledge and site access the pilot depends on.
Mobicom Pro ApS develops and implements the energy management system on site, tests it in live operation, and operates the charging infrastructure.
Can you describe your pilot in a few sentences?
The Danish pilot is a charging hub for a commercial fleet of electric trucks, integrating around 2 MWp of on-site solar generation and a 4 MWh battery with 44 charge points, all coordinated by a central energy management system (EMS). The hub operates behind a grid connection far smaller than the fleet’s combined charging demand, so the control system continuously allocates available power across vehicles, battery, and building loads in real time. Beyond day-to-day operation, the pilot demonstrates resilient performance during supply interruptions and tests the site’s ability to provide energy and power services to the public grid.
Denmark Pilot at a Glance
- Country: Denmark
- City: Odense
- Pilot type: ePIPV
- Lead organisation: DTU
- Main technology: VIPV, PV, BESS, BET, Heat Pumps
- Key objectives: Self-consumption, Peak-shaving, Grid flexibility
- Expected duration: 27 months
- Main stakeholders: DTU, Alex Andersen, Mobicom
Its distinguishing feature is the focus on heavy-duty charging. Trucks draw more power than passenger cars and run to fixed departure schedules, which makes coordination under a constrained connection a considerably harder problem than in conventional EV charging pilots.
What challenges does the pilot aim to address?
The central challenge is grid capacity. The site cannot draw enough power to charge the full fleet simultaneously, and a proportionate grid upgrade is not available — only some capacity increase is available, not enough to allow for unconstrained charging. The pilot therefore treats the connection limit as a fixed constraint and asks whether intelligent coordination can deliver reliable fleet charging within it.
Closely tied to this is operational reliability. Trucks that miss their departure windows disrupt logistics schedules, so the system ensures that heavy-duty vehicles are charged and draws on solar generation and stored energy to protect those commitments.
The pilot also targets cost and resilience: lowering energy costs through direct use of on-site solar, maintaining critical loads during constrained supply, and assessing whether the battery can generate additional value through grid services.
What innovative technologies or solutions are being demonstrated?
The pilot demonstrates several innovative technologies. One of the fleet’s trucks carries its own solar panels, thus demonstrating VIPVs. On the infrastructure side, on-site solar generation is coupled to the charging points and battery storage, so vehicles are charged from local production wherever possible instead of drawing from the grid.
The main innovation is an EMS supported by AI, developed within the project. It forecasts solar output and site demand, builds charging schedules around each vehicle’s departure time and energy need, and continuously re-optimises power allocation across charging, storage, and building loads as conditions change — respecting the connection limit while protecting fleet departure schedules.
The same platform will manage emergency operation during constrained supply and calculate the flexibility the site can offer to the grid.
What are your main objectives?
The primary objective is to prove that a heavy-duty charging hub can operate reliably behind a grid connection far smaller than its peak demand. Success means trucks consistently meet their departure schedules while the site stays within its connection limit, without the grid reinforcement that would conventionally be required.
Alongside this, the pilot aims to maximise the share of charging energy drawn from on-site solar rather than the grid, reduce peak demand and operating costs, and demonstrate that essential loads and fleet operations can be sustained through supply interruptions. A further objective is to show that the site’s battery and controllable charging can provide flexibility services to the grid, validated through pilot tests.
The wider impact lies in replication. Grid capacity is a common obstacle for fleet electrification across Europe and demonstrating that coordination can substitute for reinforcement offers logistics depots, highway hubs, and similar sites a faster and less capital-intensive route to electrifying heavy transport.
Looking ahead, what are the next steps?
The immediate priority is data. We are currently waiting on data from our pilot partners covering site consumption, solar generation, and fleet charging patterns, which will support the following steps.
In parallel, work will begin on developing the EMS. Rather than deploying directly on site, we will first build a simulation model of the site, using the partner data to represent realistic operating conditions. This allows us to test and compare different coordination strategies safely — how power is prioritised between trucks, when the battery charges and discharges, how the system responds when solar output drops or demand spikes — and to refine the algorithms before anything touches live infrastructure.
Once a strategy performs reliably in simulation, we move to validation on the real site, progressing from monitored trials to full operational deployment.
What are the possible implications for the large-scale adoption of ePIPV?
Grid capacity is one of the main bottlenecks holding back fleet electrification. Connection upgrades are often slow to obtain, expensive, or simply unavailable at the scale required. If the pilot shows that intelligent coordination can deliver reliable heavy-duty charging within an existing connection, it removes a major barrier and shortens the path to electrification considerably.
The approach is broadly transferable. The core concept — combining on-site solar, storage, and coordinated charging under a central control system — applies to logistics depots, distribution centres, highway charging hubs, and commercial fleet sites facing the same constraint. What would need adapting in each case is the local context: grid tariffs, market rules, and the roles of the local grid operators.
Fleet and site operators benefit most directly, through lower energy costs and avoided reinforcement expenditure. Grid operators gain from reduced peak pressure and access to flexible assets, while charging infrastructure providers and technology suppliers gain a validated model they can offer to other sites.