Following the launch of the Single National Platform (PUN) by the Ministry of the Environment (MASE), GSE and RSE, the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) also gives a strong boost to the development of an increasingly widespread, efficient and accessible recharging infrastructure network to accompany Italy on the path of transport decarbonization charted by Europe.
  

These objectives and the strategies to be implemented were discussed at the event dedicated to the topic of road freight transport, organized by RSE as part of e_mob, at the Sala Colonne in the Palazzo dei Giureconsulti in Milan, which brought together sector experts and representatives, politicians and stakeholders.

 
The session was opened and moderated by Massimo de Donato, journalist, author and presenter of Radio 24, who led the discussion on the prospects for and challenges of the electrification of heavy transport.

 
Institutions, stakeholders and businesses took part in the round table discussion to take stock of the needs of operators and the state of the art in Italy of the implementation of the European Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR), which includes specific targets as early as 2025.

”Trucks, while accounting for less than 4%of the vehicle fleet, are responsible for more than 25% of carbon dioxide emissions from the road transport sector. In terms of amounts of CO2, a truck produces 20 times more emissions than a car,” explained Giuseppe Mauri, Research Group Leader of the Transmission and Distribution Technologies Department at RSE. “The need to decarbonize this sector, in Italy and in Europe, therefore emerges clearly. The technologies to decarbonize this sector are already available. Battery-powered electric represents the most efficient, most sustainable and in the long term most cost-effective solution. Not only is it critical to implement the European Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR), which allows regional freight transport; to enable charging of long-range electric vehicles, we will need higher power levels, such as those supported by the new MegaWatt Charging System (MCS), currently being standardized. The MCS will support charging from 1 to 4 MW, which will allow batteries to be fully charged in the mandatory 45 minutes of rest scheduled for every 4 hours of driving. This will mean trucks up to 44 tons will be able to travel long distances in a sustainable way.” Mauri added, “The effective development of public charging infrastructure for trucks requires coordinated and advanced planning among all stakeholders involved, as well as the adoption of tools capable of mapping the most suitable rest areas for charging.”

Mario Spagnoli, GSE’s Sustainable Mobility Manager, then presented the Single National Platform (PUN), launched in March 2024 in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security and RSE. The PUN, which maps about 50,000 charging points throughout the country, is an essential tool for citizens, authorities, and industry operators. The Platform provides access data and information useful for planning the development of charging infrastructures, thus encouraging the transparent and efficient spread of electric mobility.

One of the open market questions is where to position charging infrastructure strategically so as to intercept major logistics flows, just as it is of paramount importance to stimulate investment in order to achieve the 15% highway electrification target of 2025 across Europe. In response to this question, Fabrizio Ciaralli, Senior Manager Transportation at Amazon, presented CHALET, an open source tool designed to help the public and private sectors identify the most strategic locations in which to place electric charging infrastructure along major European roads. According to Amazon, the EU’s plan to decarbonize the freight sector shows the right way forward, as Lorenzo Barbo, Managing Director of Amazon Italy Logistics, stated in his speech. “Amazon has planned an investment of more than EUR 1 billion in Europe to electrify the transport network of its delivery partners, with the prospect of equipping itself with more than 1,500 electric trucks within the next few years. For a plan like this to come to fruition, we need to promote a public-private partnership and ensure an adequate and widespread public charging infrastructure, homogeneous across countries so as to ensure operational efficiency in international transport flows,” Barbo concludes.

Thus, the evolution toward an evolved and sustainable system cannot be separated from technological innovation. The role of research therefore becomes central.

Franco Cotana, CEO of RSE, explained the dual role of a company such as RSE: “On the one hand, we have the task of supporting institutions in the definition of plans, policies and incentives thanks to third-party and scientific representations that also take into account the impacts of these measures. At this very moment, we are involved in the definition of the National Strategic Framework foreseen by the AFIR, which we are working on together with our colleagues at MASE and which will also include an update of the National Plan for Electric Charging Infrastructure (PNIRE). A second key role is to anticipate and understand potential technical criticalities and opportunities for new technological solutions, which are useful to industry,” explained Cotana, who, on the sustainability of heavy freight transport, added, ”We need to emphasize the importance of understanding the potential of other alternative fuels such as biofuels, looking beyond electricity as an energy carrier. Our goal is to decarbonize, not electrify,” Cotana added.

The event was concluded with a speech by Hon. Alessandro Morelli, Undersecretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, who expressed the Italian government’s full support for the sustainable evolution of the transport sector. Morelli reiterated the importance of an integrated and collaborative approach between institutions, industry and the world of research, stressing the fact that the choices made today are decisive for the future of the country and Europe. He also highlighted the fact that Italy is already at the forefront in many areas of sustainable mobility, reiterating the need to continue to invest in infrastructure and technological innovations in order to address the challenges still open and ensure a rapid and sustainable transition to increasingly efficient freight transport.

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