SEA says Melbourne electric truck assembly plant now “fully powered” by solar

SEA Electric, the Australian-founded electric truck manufacturer, has completed the installation of a 100kW rooftop solar system atop its Melbourne assembly facility, which it says means its facility is now powered entirely by renewables.

The new facility consist of 250 400W solar panels, the new rooftop solar system atop SEA Electric’s Melbourne assembly facility is now powering the entire location with renewable electricity, and is currently tracking at 90% carbon positive, having produced 24MWh of energy to date.

“Here at SEA Electric, we are proud to be leading the charge to eliminate CO2 emissions through our range of all-electric trucks; the next logical step has been to run our manufacturing facility purely on solar power,” said Glen Walker, the head of Asia Pacific operations for SEA.

“Electricity generation and transport are the two biggest producers of carbon dioxide in Australia, so all-electric transport powered by renewable energy makes a lot of sense moving forward.

SEA Electric founder and CEO Tony Fairweather also highlighted the ways in which electric vehicles are able to complement the larger new energy ecosystem, such as providing energy storage options which, in the future, may help to provide power grid stability and flexibility.

“Many of these large fleets utilise their vehicles for less than half of a 24 hour day; the balance is spent in depot yards, where rooftop solar panels can generate ample power supply to fully charge their batteries,” said Fairweather, sharing his first-hand experience in the deployment of large-scale electric-powered fleets in the United States.

“Consider a future transport depot to be a nationally networked, renewable power plant, not only charging fleets but also offering excess stored energy back into the power grid, possibly supported by additional on-site battery storage.

“While Moss Landing in California houses the world’s largest and most expensive battery storage facility, SEA Electric plans to deploy more battery capacity in 2024 than that entire facility. Essentially it is mobile and readily available storage ‘on wheels’.

SEA Electric’s Melbourne rooftop solar system reveal comes a fortnight after the company reported a massive order for 1,150 electric trucks.

The Australian-founded but now California-based SEA Electric revealed that it will fit its patented electric truck powertrains to a fleet of Hino M5s and delivered to GATR EV, which operates in Iowa and Minnesota in the US as part of GATR Truck Centers.

According to SEA’s VP of sales and marketing Nick Casas, it was the company’s first order above 1,000 units, and was ordered by a company that operates in a state that does not offer purchase incentives for switching to electric zero-emissions transport.