A techno-economic analysis of distributed energy resources versus wholesale electricity purchases for fueling decarbonized heavy duty vehicles

Electric and hydrogen vehicles can help decarbonize heavy duty vehicles (HDV). Few studies examine how to meet energy requirements of decarbonized HDVs, and all assume electricity will come from centralized systems. However, decarbonized HDVs could significantly increase energy demands in areas with limited transmission access, potentially favoring deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs). In this paper, we develop an optimization-based techno-economic model that minimizes costs of meeting HDV energy demands by optimizing investments in and operations of DERs, investments in transmission interconnections, and wholesale electricity purchases. We apply it to a modeled U.S. dataset of electric HDV charging demands to quantify the deployment and value potential of three DERs — solar, batteries, and nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) in the year 2040. For fleets of 100% electric HDVs to 60% electric and 40% hydrogen HDVs, DERs are deployed at 78% to 95% of all charging stations and meet between 24% to 30% of total HDV energy demand. Investments in DERs reduce annual costs by $647 million to $1.9 billion across all stations, while individual stations can save $20 million to over $100 million annually. SMRs make up over 99% of total deployed DER capacity, indicating significant potential for SMR deployment in this emerging market. Widespread DER deployment is robust to capital cost uncertainty in SMRs and transmission lines, wholesale electricity prices, and other factors.