Adiona’s platform and APIs automatically calculate the carbon emissions of your logistics routes so you can continuously and strategically monitor your Scope 1 emissions. In this blog, we’re going to look at how to use these measurements as inputs to optimize your low emissions vehicle strategy, pilots, and purchasing decisions.
In our last blog, we explained strategies for measuring andoptimizing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of zero emission vehicle (ZEV) transitions. There, we answered questions such as:
· What is your optimal mix of internal combustion (ICE) and ZEVs for lowest TCO today?
· What is the optimal mix in a year, in 5 years,and in 10 years that achieves minimum TCO and achieves your Net Zero goals?
· What Capex and Opex budgets are required toachieve it?
And stay tuned (and subscribe) because we’re going to get further in depth with this blog series about:
· How does charging profile including loading and temperature dramatically affect EV range, and how can it be mitigated across seasons and terrains?
· What is our ideal charging infrastructure and how do we leverage public and private partner options?
· How do we design and optimize new charging infrastructure based on the above?
But today we will address the simple fact that you can’t optimize what you don’t measure. So to optimize and minimize our emissions, we need to accurately measure them, and Adiona’s fleet simulation and routing tech can do that for you.
Questions we’ll look at in this blog:
· How do I measure emissions of my current mixed fleet of vehicles?
· What standards do I use?
· Can I use this for reporting up the chain and outward to my stakeholders?
· I’m always being asked what more can I do to minimize emissions without breaking the bank. Can I compare ZEV vehicle choices to optimize cost vs emissions so I can justify my decisions?
Real Time vs Simulated:
We support two modes: Simulation mode and Real Time mode. Simulation mode is a more cost-effective option that uses historical or simulated routes to give you a snapshot of emissions in a single shift or day. You can then extrapolate emissions over a longer time span for planning, optimization, and reporting. Real Time mode calculates emissions continually, but is more expensive to run, and tbh, isn’t necessary for most organizations unless they are offering real-time lowest-carbon options to their customers. We support that, too.
Standards:
The calculations use the GLEC emissions calculation standard, the only globally harmonized option, to calculate emissions for each leg of your routes. The base calculation is based on accepted estimates for different vehicle types based on size and fuel type. This can be improved and refined by providing make, model, fuel type, production year, and other details if they’re available. It’s also easy to translate GLEC to other calculation methods if required (just ask us).
Idle time:
Idle time is tricky. You can get most of the picture from our route plans and the service time and loading/unloading times. But if you have deeper data from telematics or runsheets, this can be input separately to further improve the emissions calculation.
Let’s see an example:
Refer to Part 1 where we created delivery scenarios for a mixed fleet of different vehicle types. Below you can see this mixed fleet of Battery Electric (BEV), Fuel Cell (FCV), and Internal Combustion (ICE) vehicles with different ranges and capacities.
You can see key information like the number of items, number of stops, cost per drop, route time, route distance, and the GHG emissions (circled on the image). Our API allows extraction of all this information and more.
You can see that there are three vehicle types: ICE, BEV, and FCV. ICE has the biggest capacity and range, and the highest emissions, and the other two are obviously lower. The emissions calculation for BEV and ICE is based on the electricity and other resources required to power the vehicle over that distance, the load weight, the environmental temperature on the day, and makes some assumptions about regenerative braking, which can be customized.
Right away, you can start to make decisions.
Great, now you are calculating real fleet emissions now and seeing what emissions would be with different ZEV vehicle mixes. Now what?
Firstly, bravo. You’re way ahead of the curve and your management team should be thrilled. And now you’ve got the information you need to report upward and outward across your org and externally. And it is based on reality, not just a consultant’s spreadsheet.
If you like what you’ve read so far, please subscribe to our newsletters and follow us on LinkedIn.
In our next blog, we’ll explain via a real case study how this information can be input into TCO optimizations to further inform your long term strategy.
