Flanders boosts 19 electric truck charging pilots with €3 million

The Belgian Flemish Region has selected 19 projects to receive financial support totaling three million euros for the roll-out of (semi-)public charging infrastructure for heavy trucks. This support is the result of the project call launched by the Flemish government in April 2024.

One of the first significant projects to be realized in 2025 will be Van Moer Logistics, which will start the construction of the first privately managed smart loading plaza for freight traffic in the port of Antwerp in 2025.

The project includes six public fast chargers and 30 slow chargers for the company’s own electric truck fleet. Thanks to intelligent battery backup control, Van Moer and its partner Bnewable want to optimally control the green energy flows from the company’s solar panels.

Second project call

The Flemish Department for Mobility and Public Works (Departement Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken) launched the first project call in 2023. The nineteen projects selected now result from a second call in 2024.

These projects mainly focus on public charging infrastructure along highways offered by Charge Point Operators (CPOs) and semi-public charging infrastructure linked to local energy generation, storage, and load balancing.

Most of the submitted projects were stand-alone (semi-)public charging systems. Six projects were assessed as innovative and will also receive financial support from Flanders. Two projects were submitted for software support.

First privately managed plaza in Antwerp

Van Moer Logistics now announces an initial investment of about €1.2 million in the construction of a loading plaza for electric freight traffic on its site along the Keetberglaan on the left bank of the River Scheldt in Antwerp (Zwijndrecht).

The company claims this will be the first privately managed public loading court for freight traffic within the port of Antwerp. It will offer six 400kW fast chargers that will be open for public charging, next to some thirty 50 kW slow chargers for its own trucks and terminal tractors that can charge at night.

Solar panels and battery backup

On the one hand, the energy for these chargers is generated by the solar panels on the Van Moer Logistics site in combination with battery backup technology managed by partner Bnewable. They specialize in energy storage and generation for the commercial and industrial markets.

They developed a smart Energy Management System (EMS) that maximizes the use of green energy. In addition, additional revenue is generated by supporting the grid operators in balancing the electricity grid or trading in the energy markets.

On the other hand, Van Moer will also buy electricity through green energy contracts. In the near future, the current capacity of the solar panels will also be further expanded by about 3.5 MWp.

Van Moer Logistics is a service provider offering tailor-made logistics solutions. It is active in transport, distribution, storage, intermodal logistics, and tank container logistics within the ports of Antwerp, Ghent, and Brussels and 40 locations across Belgium and Germany. The group has 500 trucks, 800,000 square meters of warehouse space, and nine inland waterway vessels.