HoLa project commissions Germany’s first megawatt charging point

The HoLa project has been running since 2021, and aims to install fast charging hubs for trucks at several locations along the A2 motorway between Berlin and the Ruhr area. A total of five locations are planned, all of which will feature CCS chargers with four of them including MCS chargers.

Now, the partners behind the project – which span the automotive, energy supply, grid operation, highway management and research sectors – have reached an important milestone. This week, the first German megawatt charging point (MCS) for battery-electric trucks in a public space was put into operation at the Lipperland Süd rest stop on the A2 highway near Bielefeld. It’s not only a milestone for the HoLa project, but the country as well: it’s the very first public MCS charging point in Germany.

In theory, the new MCS standard enables charging capabilities of up to 3.75 megawatts. However, HoLa’s installation at the Lipperland Süd rest stop actually uses a 1.2MW charging station operated by EnBW mobility+ and manufactured by ABB, both partners in the HoLa project itself. The maximum possible charging power is thus three times higher than that of standard CCS chargers with 400 kW. The emphasis here is on ‘maximum’, because just as with CCS, the actual charging power with MCS depends on the maximum charging power of the vehicle. Four truck manufacturers are involved in the HoLa project: Daimler Truck, MAN, Scania and Volvo, all of whom are actively participating in the development and testing of the standard with their trucks.

Prof. Patrick Plötz from Fraunhofer ISI said at the grand opening of the MCS charger at the Lipperland Süd rest stop: “Megawatt charging marks the start of a new chapter in electric logistics. For the first time, heavy-duty trucks can be charged for a range of hundreds of kilometers in just 30 to 45 minutes; this is the prerequisite for an economically viable electrification of long-haul trucking. The HoLa project demonstrates that charging infrastructure, grid connection and vehicles can already work together today, if all the stakeholders pull in the same direction.”

Christian Hirte, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Transport, added: “With HoLa, we are putting a key technology for climate-friendly freight traffic on the road. For the first time, megawatt charging makes it possible for heavy-duty trucks to charge for long distances in an extremely short time. This will make the use of battery-electric trucks over long distances more flexible and more economical. Projects such as HoLa show how politics, research and industry are working together to accelerate the decarbonization of road freight transport.”

The HoLa project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport with a total of €12 million as part of the Electric Mobility Funding Guideline and is being implemented as a technology and testing project within the framework of the Climate-Friendly Commercial Vehicles overall concept. Funding also comes from the EU. At the beginning of the year, Shell joined HoLa as an additional project partner. The oil company is to equip and operate three locations with both CCS and MCS charging technology.

isi.fraunhofer.de, mantruckandbus.com

This article was first published by Florian Treiß for electrive’s German edition