Electric truck and charging infrastructure leasing company PragmaCharge has teamed up with US logistics real estate firm Prologis to launch a new electric truck charging hub at Mercavalència. This facility is already the largest of its kind in Spain and one of the largest in Europe, and forms part of the British company’s plan to invest up to €40 million in the country.

Located 3.5 kilometres from the Port of Valencia, the new hub has launched 14 charging points in its first phase, already making it the largest in Spain. The rollout will continue in phases across the facility’s 12,500 square metres until next year, when it will boast 50 high-power charging points, backed by a guaranteed four-megawatt connection to the electricity grid, one of the largest on the continent.

Container transport
Powered by renewable energy, the hub already serves electric heavy-duty vehicles operated by two transport companies. Logística Carosan-Transnugon-OnRoute uses electric heavy-duty vehicles in round-the-clock fleet operations. Grupo Torres, meanwhile, will use the facility to charge the electric lorries it operates to transport containers between the Port of Valencia and its customers.

Prologis is the developer and owner of the facility, which will be operated by PragmaCharge. The Mercavalència agri-food logistics platform , brings together 205 companies, where it is located, across its 500,000 square metres, and records more than 500 lorry movements a day.

Heavy-duty transport electrification
PragmaCharge CEO Henry Lawson describes this operation as “an important step towards electrifying heavy-duty transport in Spain”, adding: “Operators need to be confident that electric lorries can be integrated into real-world routes, taking into account charging times and commitments to customers. This hub has been specifically designed with that operational reality in mind.”

For Pablo Bordils, Managing Director of Logística Carosan-Transnugon-OnRoute, “electrification only works if we can confidently integrate electric lorries into our day-to-day operations”. He added, “The Mercavalència hub gives us that confidence by providing charging capacity in a convenient location with easy access to the routes we operate on”.

Meanwhile, Melchert Duijve, Vice-President of Energy Solutions Europe at Prologis, highlighted the role the logistics real estate sector can play in electrifying freight transport, “Electric heavy-duty transport can only be rolled out on a large scale if charging infrastructure is developed with how fleets actually operate in mind.”

^{Photo: Prologis}