BERLIN. On 1 July 2024, the discussion event on “Decarbonization of heavy road freight transport: overhead line technology as a building block for the transport transition” took place at the Schleswig-Holstein State Representation in Berlin. Energy Minister Tobias Goldschmidt hosted the evening, also on behalf of the Minister of Transport Claus Ruhe Madsen. In his opening statement, he emphasized the technological maturity of the overhead line and posed the question of how the technology could now be implemented.

The presentation by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Arnd Stephan from TU Dresden on the results of overhead line projects underpinned the usability of overhead line technology with facts from research and operation. Britta Sommer from the VDI/VDE-IT project management organization explained how the topic of overhead contact lines could be given more consideration. By the end of 2024, the EU Commission must present a report on the technological and market maturity of heavy commercial vehicles, in which the existing solutions for the decarbonization of heavy goods transport are presented. The inclusion of dynamic charging in this report would be an important step towards positioning the topic throughout the EU.

Dr. Jörg Salomon from Deutsche Post AG / DHL looked at the situation regarding the decarbonization of heavy trucks from a logistics perspective. He emphasized that it was difficult to imagine how stationary charging would work in public spaces. In addition to stationary charging, solutions such as overhead lines or battery swap systems should also be considered for greater practicality.

The presentations were followed by a panel discussion on the future prospects of overhead line technology. The discussion was characterized by many arguments for a large-scale application of overhead line technology in Germany. Hasso Grünjes (Siemens Mobility GmbH) calculated that the system would already be economically viable if less than 5% of the trucks registered in Germany used it. And the potential is even higher if you take into account the large proportion of foreign trucks on German roads.

It also became clear in the discussion that hydrogen could only be a niche application in road transport, as it is needed in the steel and process industries and possibly in shipping and aviation. State Secretary Höppner (Federal Ministry of Transport) justified the federal prioritization of this technology solely on the basis of the requirements of the European Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation(AFIR). In response to Goldschmidt’s question as to the extent to which the Federal Ministry of Transport might have slipped up when it came to technological openness, State Secretary Höppner was unambiguous: the current reluctance with regard to overhead lines was not based on an assessment of the technology, but resulted exclusively from budgetary considerations and the requirements of the AFIR.

“We found the overhead line enormously exciting, which is why we also^held talks with the consortium1, but with the Constitutional Court’s ruling on the Climate and Transformation Fund, we then lacked the resources to pursue a further approach here,” says Höppner.

¹[Note: on 15.05.2023 with Thyssenkrupp Schulte, DHL, Continental Engineering Services, Scania and Siemens]