Austrian Post is the leading logistics and postal service provider in the country. In order to switch to a fully electric fleet by 2030, they needed the corresponding charging infrastructure, as well as a smart energy management system to make it feasible.
As a forward-thinking postal and logistics company, Austrian Post realized the importance of guaranteeing sustainable delivery by transitioning to a fully electric fleet by 2030. This involved replacing their entire fleet, as well as installing over 8,000 electric vehicle charging stations. An additional challenge, however, was the added electricity demand from charging fleets and the added strain on the grid.
Rather than undergoing expensive grid extensions, Austrian Post chose to rely on XENON for a dynamic load management solution, which intelligently controls charging processes and prevents overloads to ensure that operations are not interrupted. XENON's modular architecture allowed the seamless integration of the existing charging stations, in cooperation with the manufacturers, directly on site within just one week. This meant that all systems were compatible with XENON and charging processes could be optimized across all charge points.
The charging requirements for logistics differs from many other use cases. Because most electric vehicles are used throughout the day, the EV charging stations are effectively all occupied at night. Robust local connections ensure that no network outages affect charging and thus cannot jeapardize the tours for the following day.
In addition, the limited availability of electricity and high charging requirements of many of the delivery trucks – at least 6 amps on average – not all vehicles can be charged at the same time. Our XENON platform, in combination with the Grid Protector module, allows users to define their own charging strategy to meet individual needs. Austrian Post was able to define a sequential charging strategy that ensures each car is sufficiently charged overnight. This guarantees that the entire electric fleet is always ready to complete the next day's tour.
As charging demand continues to grow, many electric vehicle (EV) charging sites quickly reach grid capacity limits, making expansion complex and costly. E.ON Drive required a flexible energy management platform that allows charging infrastructure to scale across diverse sites while keeping both upfront investment costs and ongoing operational costs, such as grid fees, low.
At one site, dynamic load management with XENON enabled E.ON Drive to expand the charging capacity by a factor of eight without any grid extension. The platform automatically allocates power to vehicles, ensuring full utilization of available grid capacity without requiring additional infrastructure investment.
Swiss Post is Switzerland's central logistics provider. The group has set ambitious sustainability goals and plans to operate all-electric fleets at 100 locations by the end of 2024. From 2030, the entire delivery fleet is to be electric.
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