How ABB and Greenlane Are Reinventing EV Truck Charging

Building the Backbone of Electric Freight

As electrification gathers pace around the world, Greenlane is building a strong platform for medium- and heavy-duty electric trucks. The company's first charging hub in Colton, California, is not merely a pilot; it is a milestone. With more than 40 high-speed chargers scaling to 60, the site is capable of charging up to 200 trucks daily.

Moreover, Colton is the first of four planned hubs along a 280-mile corridor between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. This strategic route supports freight movement, indicating that Greenlane is focused on building a comprehensive network rather than isolated stations.

Managing Power with Precision

Charging this many trucks requires significant energy—equivalent to a medium-sized sports stadium. But whereas stadiums can afford to overload their local grid, EV charging hubs cannot. To deal with that, Greenlane teamed up with ABB to deploy sophisticated load management systems.

At the heart of Colton's energy strategy is ABB's SCADA system. It allows for remote monitoring and control of circuit breakers at both low-voltage and medium-voltage levels, an option not commonly afforded to EV infrastructure. This ensures safe and efficient operations, preventing grid disconnection.

Layered Load Management for Grid Protection

In addition to SCADA, the Colton site has a cloud-based Charger Management System (CMS) along with an Energy Management System (EMS). These systems each work together to balance charger loads and manage future energy sources like solar and battery storage.

The site also uses multiple stages of load shedding. At 95% of its energy budget, the CMS transitions control to SCADA. In order, 180 kW chargers—those used for long-dwell charging—are shut off. If needed, 400 kW chargers are shed next. At 97.5%, the system sheds power to the entire site to avoid a utility-initiated blackout.

Ensuring uptime, protecting revenue, and maintaining grid stability is achieved with this layered approach.

Preparing for the Megawatt Charging Era

Even now, Greenlane believes that Colton will eventually handle a much larger load. The company estimates that one million electric semi-trucks will hit the roads by 2030. To accommodate that, the site was designed with support for Megawatt Charging Systems. These chargers boast up to 1.5 MW of power and can add about 300 miles of range in 30 minutes. This charging time aligns with federally mandated rest periods for truck drivers, which will allow electric trucks to continue on existing schedules. Therefore, faster charging translates to increased freight movement, better revenue generation, and lower cost per mile. The Colton site is already prepared to accommodate this next phase of electric freight infrastructure.