Austrian Post AG opts for load management by TMH
Austria’s mail service Austrian Post AG is aiming to decarbonise all last-mile deliveries by 2030. To charge the growing fleet, they will install over 2,400 charging points at more than 130 locations and now opted for smart load management.
A public tender saw The Mobility House (TMH) outbid the competition. In future, their ChargePilot system will intelligently control over 2,000 AC and DC charging points in all the Post’s charging parks.
TMH stresses that its system is hardware-agnostic, which is key to support different charging stations and vehicles. At present, the Austrian Post says it already serves about 80% of the delivery areas in Austria with electric vehicles. Paul Janacek, Head of Corporate Fleet at Österreichische Post AG, says the company had been committed to electric delivery vehicles in day-to-day delivery operations since 2011. “Since then, battery power has proven to be optimal for us,” he adds before calling ChargePilot the “technically up-to-date and scalable load management system” they had been looking for.
ChargePilot by The Mobility House will ensure that all vehicles are fully charged at all sites in the mornings while optimising the phase-accurate charging power to avoid overloading the grid. This means the EVs charge either in sequential phases or throttled in real-time, with some transporters being prioritised according to requirements. ChargePilot also considers all other power consumers at each particular site, and TMH claims this would avoid any expensive grid expansion.
At some Post sites, ChargePilot will control large charging parks with up to 70 different charging points. “An open interface architecture is thus a vital foundation for meeting the numerous requirements and making a flexible expansion possible,” explains Sebastian Karrer, Head of Key Account at The Mobility House.
TMH has deployed ChargePilot at over 300 international companies so far, including several leading European postal and logistics service providers, the company says. TMH was founded in 2009 as a neutral provider and received a strategic investment from the SP Group, a Singaporean energy utility company last September. The Munich-based company intends to use the cooperation to open up markets in Asia.
Austrian Post already uses numerous electric vehicles, for example, Renault Kangoo ZE vehicles. Another example is the plan to run Post aims to a purely electric fleet in Graz by August 2021.
Austrian Post AG has also been looking to begin testing fuel cell vehicles. Only two weeks ago, the company signed an MoU with Austria’s mineral oil company OMV to prepare to run 2,000 fuel cell trucks on green hydrogen by 2030. The first deployment in Austria is planned for 2023 at the latest.
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