Increasing the Number of Electric Trucks We Can Charge Through Flexible Service Connections

RMI analysis indicates that flexible service connections—agreements where charging sites curtail load during peak hours—can significantly increase the number of electric trucks the grid can support without costly infrastructure upgrades. Focusing on PG&E's territory in Northern California, the report finds that shifting just 1 megawatt of load can allow the majority of feeders to support 10 additional heavy-duty trucks.

• Flexible service connections allow new charging sites to connect to the grid by agreeing to curtail load during constrained peak hours, avoiding the need for costly upgrades that are typically triggered by conservative utility planning based on the highest possible load hour of the year.
• RMI's analysis of PG&E data shows that shifting 1 megawatt of load away from peak hours for the required limited days would enable the majority of feeders to charge 10 more heavy-duty trucks than standard load planning allows.
• Scaling flexible service connections across PG&E's approximately 2,000 feeders could support an additional 25,000 to 70,000 heavy-duty trucks per year, which RMI states is sufficient to absorb the load of every electric truck purchased in California last year without grid upgrades.
• The capacity for additional trucks increases as the 'flexibility window' for shifting load expands. For a median feeder in PG&E territory, increasing the window from 2 to 6 hours increases the additional trucks supported from 3 to 22 for regional heavy-duty trucks, and from 9 to 64 for urban heavy-duty trucks.
• Load shifting is operationally feasible for most heavy-duty fleets in California because trucks with daily mileages under 300 miles are typically parked between 4 p.m. and 5 a.m., a window that covers peak grid hours. Furthermore, these trucks often require less than half of their parked time to charge at 75 kilowatts.
• In Northern California, peak load hours typically occur between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. during summer. RMI found that for 60 percent of the analyzed feeders, load shifting would only be necessary during the month of July for a two-hour flexibility scenario.
• PG&E's FlexConnect program is currently the only wide-scale offering of this type in the US, with a real-world example involving PepsiCo adding 20 electric trucks on regional haul routes. Other utilities, such as SCE and National Grid, have pilot programs.

APA

RMI (2025). Increasing the Number of Electric Trucks We Can Charge Through Flexible Service Connections. https://rmi.org/resources/increasing-the-number-of-electric-trucks-we-can-charge-through-flexible-service-connections/

Chicago

RMI. Increasing the Number of Electric Trucks We Can Charge Through Flexible Service Connections. 2025. https://rmi.org/resources/increasing-the-number-of-electric-trucks-we-can-charge-through-flexible-service-connections/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=Increasing the Number of Electric Trucks We Can Charge Through Flexible Service Connections |date=15 December 2025 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/increasing-the-number-of-electric-trucks-we-can-charge-through-flexible-service-connections/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2025increasing, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{Increasing the Number of Electric Trucks We Can Charge Through Flexible Service Connections}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2025}, month = dec, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/increasing-the-number-of-electric-trucks-we-can-charge-through-flexible-service-connections/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }