Electrify This!

Long-Haul Charging: Powering Heavy-Duty Trucks with Electricity

• Sara Baldwin, Energy Innovation, LLC • Season 5 • Episode 5

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Electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles are on the rise around the world as more businesses electrify their fleets and delivery vehicles — global electric truck sales grew by almost 80% in 2024. But what does it take to build multi-megawatt charging stations to support electric fleets? Jason Berry, Vice President of Terawatt Infrastructure, joins host Sara Baldwin to discuss the challenges and innovative approaches to building the infrastructure we need to power big trucks for the long-haul.

Guest Bios: 

Jason Berry is the Vice President of Energy & Utilities at Terawatt Infrastructure, where he leads utility engagement, energy infrastructure development, regulation, and policy for a national portfolio of private charging depots serving commercial fleet customers. Jason is an experienced leader in the energy sector with over 20 years of experience advancing emerging energy technologies, developing infrastructure, and shaping policy and regulation. He previously held senior leadership roles in energy at Amazon and Amazon Web Services, as well as in the public and utility sectors, where he managed multimillion-dollar clean energy projects and influenced various regulatory and policy initiatives. Jason holds a Master of Public Administration and a B.S. in Environmental Studies from the University of Utah.

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Sara Baldwin: I am your host, Sara Baldwin, Senior Director of Electrification with Energy Innovation. Welcome to another episode of Electrify This!, a podcast focused on electrification as a tool to cut climate pollution and invigorate our economy. Each episode I connect with experts to explore the policy and market issues underpinning the shift to electrified transportation, buildings, and industry, all powered by a clean electricity grid.

Today's episode, Long-Haul Charging: Powering Heavy Duty Trucks with Electricity. 

In 2024, global Electric Truck sales grew by almost 80%, and electric bus sales grew by 30% the same year. Driven by strong growth in China, the European Union, India, the U.S., the UK, and many Latin American countries, electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles are on the rise around the world.

In addition, more businesses are beginning to electrify their fleets and delivery vehicles, including big names like DHL, IKEA, FedEx, Walmart, and Amazon. As battery costs continue to decline and demand increases for cleaner, quieter, more comfortable vehicles, there are more electric medium- and heavy-duty models available than ever before.

But of course, as with all things electric, ensuring sufficient infrastructure to charge these vehicles is a top priority. Building multi-megawatt charging stations capable of powering big trucks and fleets efficiently and affordably poses a big challenge in many places. Whether they power up overnight, at depots, or on the road, charging these vehicles without overwhelming the electric grid is imperative. And it takes a lot of time and investments to get it right.

Fortunately, we're seeing a lot of innovation in this space, and new business models are emerging to tackle these challenges. On today's episode, we're going to hear from one company, Terawatt Infrastructure, about what it really takes to power heavy-duty vehicles and keep them charged for the long haul. 

My guest today is a transportation electrification and grid expert, and he is also a longtime colleague and friend. We went to the same university, the University of Utah, and had a chance to collaborate on several pioneering energy initiatives after we graduated, and we were both getting started in our early careers.

Jason Barry is the Vice President of Energy and Utilities at Terawatt Infrastructure where he leads utility engagement, energy infrastructure, development, regulation, and policy for a national portfolio of private charging depots serving commercial fleet customers. Jason has over 20 years of experience advancing emerging energy technologies, developing infrastructure and shaping policy and regulation, and he is worn a lot of hats.

Welcome to the show, Jason. It's great to have you here. 

Jason Berry: Hey, Sara, thanks for having me. Look forward to the conversation. 

Sara Baldwin: Same here. Glad we're finally making it happen. Before we dive in, please give our listeners some background on yourself and some of the major milestones in your illustrious career that's led you to work now today at Terawatt Infrastructure.

Jason Berry: Yeah, wow, it's 20 plus years long now. I started out working state government at the state of Utah's energy office working in renewable energy and then pivoted and started working for Rocky Mountain Power (Pacificorp) running energy efficiency programs.

I then transitioned over to Efficiency Vermont and helped run emerging technology programs, energy efficiency, and solar programs. I did some consulting, then moved back to the west and then had an opportunity to work for Amazon for almost five years, helping everything from developing smart thermostats to eventually working on EV charging build out for Amazon Last Mile Delivery services. They ordered thousands of vans and needed to have charging installed at all the last mile delivery stations. I was one of the early team members there that got to figure out how to go build all that infrastructure. 

That led me on my most recent journey: working at Terawatt Infrastructure, a small startup, building similar charging depots for commercial fleet vehicles. I saw that there was a lot of opportunity there and wanted to be on the ground floor with a organization that did that, and Terawatt has been that for me. 

Sara Baldwin: You've had such a cool and exciting career. It's been fun to watch all your different chapters over the years we've known each other. I’d love to have you tell us a little bit more about Terawatt Infrastructure and, what the company's role is in this exciting EV charging space, where you're working, and how you're tackling the challenge.

Jason Berry: Terawatt Infrastructure is a startup, and we've been around for four years. We're basically a charging as a service company for commercial fleet vehicles (private fleets, not public).

We've been focused on everything from light-duty vehicles (think rideshare and autonomous vehicles) to medium-duty, as well as heavy-duty class 6 through 8 trucks and semis that are being electrified. 

We believe that a lot of customers will never be able to afford to build all the costly infrastructure to go charge vehicles to electrify their fleets. So there's a need for a service provider that can just provide that, basically an electrified gas station if you will. People don't go around and usually build all their own gas stations, so it's pretty analogous to that. And with that we are a full stack developer.

We have a strong real estate focus. We purchase all the property that we develop. We have a large portfolio over 18 states and 30+ properties across the U.S., and we are acquiring more as we speak. So we develop, we do all the entitlements work, we construct it, we build the whole site, and then we own and operate it long term.

We have our own tech team. We built our own charge management platform to integrate with our chargers and with our customers’ vehicles. These are not public charging stations per se. Any member of the public or a fleet could use our chargers, but they have to sign an agreement and contract with us.

We have various flavors of those contracts, and we enroll customers and their vehicles. And one of the big things that I think differentiates us is we offer reliability as a service as well. We really pride ourselves on having very high uptime. So when vehicles come into charge, they don't have those electronic issues that you hear about in the public charging sphere. 

We pride ourselves on having 98% uptime since we have been live, and we have we have a lot of guarantees with our customers that will keep it up and going. 

Sara Baldwin: That sounds like an important role in this space. What are you most focused on right now? You're now the VP of Energy and Utilities, so is that changing how you're navigating this space? What is your top priority these days?

Jason Berry: I've been at Terawatt for three years, and we are seeing a lot of growth in heavy-duty and light-duty. The ride share market has really grown quite a bit, so we are serving a lot of customers in that sector and building a much larger footprint across the U.S..

My role has changed a little bit over time. But basically, I have a bigger team that's engaging with all the different utilities throughout the U.S. developing sites. And then also focus on that regulatory and policy side of things.

I have a policy team that works on the federal and state levels, and on the regulatory side as well. I have more of a focus on the regulatory side, given my background and history. I typically take on a lot of that work: whether providing testimony in rate cases, advocating for EV charging rates, speeding up energization timelines, or trying to get more funding in for infrastructure development. 

The real bottleneck today is just trying to get enough power to our sites.

Sara Baldwin: We are going to dig in a little bit more on some of those issues. But first, there is a new state of play in the U.S. under current administration, and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (or HR-1) is now law, which has shifted a lot very quickly for EVs and the transportation electrification movement.

You're in the private sector trying to get business done, so I'd love to get your take on how that law (and any of the other actions at the federal level) have impacted your work and the transportation electrification work that your company is doing.

Jason Berry: Yeah, there have been headwinds due to federal policy changes in our industry. I look at it a little more positively, and they really haven't impacted the long-term viability per fleet. Electrification as the total cost of ownership is what fleets are looking at, and electric vehicles can help improve their operations. Even where subsidies may be going away, we’re seeing battery costs continue to decline.

We're seeing new second generation heavy-duty EVs, and they're getting 500 miles on a charge, and those types of things allow fleet owners and operators to improve their total cost of operation.

So, there may be a higher upfront cost for the vehicle, but much lower operations and maintenance costs. Combined with the fact that there is more reliable charging, these factors are helping fleets to electrify.

And we're still seeing early adopters really leaning in hard on it and looking for that. In addition, we're also seeing states step up their support and funding for vehicle electrification. So that's really helped keep the momentum going. Our motto is, keep our foot on the pedal. 

Sara Baldwin: Great. I love to hear about other dynamics at play outside of the policy landscape, and it sounds like there is more optimism than you might read about in the news. Is there anything in particular that Terawatt Infrastructure is doing to sustain momentum and keep at it? You've got a lot of work to do, it sounds so I'm sure there's no shortage of things to, to get done, but what are you really focusing on there?

Jason Berry: Yeah, it may sound cliché, but we're really focused on the customer and providing a charging experience that really compels them to want to do more. We want to really be a partner, not just a service provider, but a true partner in their electrification journey.

I think we're, doing a great job at that. I have a great team and can't say enough about the work that they do to get the sites online on time. We have four sites online now, two light-duty sites in San Francisco and two heavy-duty sites that are near the port of Long Beach and the Inland Empire, which is one of the largest logistics hubs in the U.S. With those coming online, we will have over 16 Megawatts of installed charging.

And we have another eight megawatts coming online by the end of the year at another site, including a large portfolio of light-duty sites that are in the development pipeline today.

Sara Baldwin: I don't know it's cliche. I think it's actually en vogue to focus on the customer (or it should be anyway), so that's great.

I want to chat about the 30c tax credit for electric vehicle charging, which is was one of the things that was stripped in the HR-1, and it's going to expire June, 2026. It was a big tax credit. It was a bump up from $30,000 per charger to $100,000 per charge point.

I think for a lot of people like myself who are policy oriented, that represented a potential game changer to really accelerate charging infrastructure. Obviously not enough time to really make that work now that it's set to expire. But how is that affecting your business? Do you expect it to impact your industry in the near-term or over the long-term? 

Jason Berry: Sure, it's probably going to have an impact. We'll probably see a big bump before everything completely goes away, like we have with some of the other tax credits expiring.

But, while the tax credit is helpful, it's not the main driver for investment decisions for customers. So, we haven't seen that noticeable change because of it. Charging demand is still really the prerequisite there for a site to be built, especially for heavy-duty charging.

There are other carrots that are also helping persuade fleets to transition. We're really focused on getting the costs per stall down at our sites to a point where they are compelling enough for different fleet operators to lean in and say, “oh yeah, maybe I will do this now.”

It's really just a cost per kilowatt hour, and we're trying to equate that to the equivalent cost per gallon of diesel. If we can keep those costs lower, we have customers that are still, eager to switch over.

Sara Baldwin: That's helpful to know. What do you see as the highest priorities for getting more charging infrastructure installed and sustaining investments? What really needs to happen?

Jason Berry: Show me the power. That's really it; getting the infrastructure built to get the power to our sites. So policy changes at the state level, at the regulatory level, state public utility commissions need to continue to plan for fleet electrification, because the interest is still there. Despite federal headwinds, this is a long-term play and game. That infrastructure needs to be built and it needs to start today, to have it four to five years out.

And we're not just talking about bringing out a new distribution distribution line to some of these sites. Our sites range from five megawatts to 25 megawatts. And a single circuit is 10 megawatts, and there isn’t a lot of available capacity on those circuits. A substation is around 25 megawatts, maybe 50 megawatts. Upstream from that is transmission. And so, it’s this waterfall of infrastructure that needs to be built and improved over time, and that's a big cost. And states are struggling to keep rates low, but also to make investments for the future. 

So that's our challenge and where our team works. We're educating policymakers on how we develop sites and how big they are. We are part of coalitions, like Powering America's Clean Transportation Corridors (PACTC), which is a consortium of developers like us, along with fleets and OEM. We are primarily engaging at the state level and having discussions to help them understand this is coming and the demand is here. 

But it's also a bit of a chicken and the egg challenge. The EV charging development or adoption won't come if power is always five years out. So how do you get ahead of that to decrease those timelines? The trucking companies who need to make those investments won’t plan for this if it's that far out.

Sara Baldwin: That sounds very challenging. And I would imagine a lot of these conversations involve a combination of utility planning discussions, in terms of what they are anticipating for the grid, but also energization timelines and interconnection processes that are very granular and step-by-step. So there is a lot of layering that has to happen. 

Can you say more about some of the regulatory work you are doing? Are you seeing any innovative models or exciting developments? 

Jason Berry: Definitely. We've been having a lot of conversations past three years in various states. Not just California, but California often is at the tip of the spear for trying to innovate on some policies, even though that could be one of the most challenging places to develop today.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has been working on energization timelines and better defining what the process is for large load customers. To help lower barriers and get a clarity on how long things will take (and not just being a black box, which it can be). You have to have niche subject matter expertise to go through that process, which is what my team does. We try to articulate why these processes are inefficient and how they could move faster. We’re working with other organizations to do that, such as CalStart.

We are also working with other entities, like the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and Edison Electric Institute. They have great forums to engage with a lot of state utilities.

Beyond even the energization, we’re thinking about how to get to that longer term goal. A new concept is proactive planning (or pending loads). How can we avoid a customer having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a very detailed design of what they're going to go build and then submit it to the utility (which is typically the process before the utility will ever go and design and build the work)? 

The utility wants certainty that there is a real project at the end and that they're not stuck with stranded assets. But, if it's always five years out, no one's ever going to invest that money to even design what they want to go build.

And so how do you get more comfortable that there aren't going to be stranded assets? And defining what a stranded asset is from a large loads perspective is the next conversation in California. 

We're working through how to define a pending load, which is some future load that the utility can have more confidence in and because of that, we can actually put it into the planning forecasts. Then the utility could go upgrade the system knowing there will be a new load eventually built there.

Sara Baldwin: I don't know if that's encouraging, but I'm glad to know you're working on it. 

Jason Berry: And are there other states too. I want to give a shout out to New York’s utility, National Grid, and the New York State Public Service Commission. They've had something going on for years just like this, and they've just granted approval for National Grid to build multiple substations across the interstate across New York based on interviews and engagement with different fleet customers saying, “yes, if you build that, I will, electrify my fleet.” And so they're now building out a series of substations and key logistics areas.

So that's the kind of stuff like success stories that we want to hear about and replicate to other states. 

Sara Baldwin: Yeah, there is a lot of excitement around what is happening in New York, and I've also heard some cool stuff coming out of Illinois more recently as well. I should mention, I'm part of the, an initiative called Charged Initiative—co-led by Grid Lab, Advanced Energy United, and RMI—which is focused on what's needed at the grid level to enable electrification (including several of the solutions you’ve mentioned). 

Jason, there are a lot of other large load customers that would also like power (i.e., data centers are also very power hungry). Are you feeling a certain level of competition for the grid in this crazy time where it seems like everyone needs electricity and wants it yesterday?

Jason Berry: Yes and no. Compared to what we're trying to build is, data centers are much larger loads. And, we're seeing utilities getting strained, resource-wise. We're seeing people leaving the utilities, taking with them subject matter expertise leaving and the institutional knowledge.

As you probably know really well, there is already a shortage of engineers in the world, and it just seems like it's exacerbated. So we've seen utilities that used to be able to provide us capacity checks in two weeks, and now some are nine to 15 weeks out.

We have utilities that are telling us they won't even check the capacity unless we submit a complete design, and it's going to be six to eight months before we know if there's capacity. So as a developer, you just can't go to those areas because you know the risk of investing in a property and finding out that it's an order of magnitude off, as far as timeline and cost.

Most data centers are transmission service, and we're a distribution service. So at least we're not trying to get the attention of the transmission team. They are usually separate teams (transmission and distribution). 

Sara Baldwin: Jason, what policy changes would be most helpful to pave the path for more streamlined charging deployment (including at the state and local government levels)?

Jason Berry: Ooh, yeah, that's a big one. If I could just bring in my development team to talk about those things, they do a lot of the hard heavy lifting there.

Every authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) is a snowflake, and their requirements are usually different. Depending on the type of site you're developing or location, that can be a non-starter. Zoning and permitting can be challenging, but rezoning is almost always a non-starter for us at the speed that our customers are wanting to electrify.

So that is a big challenge and, getting some streamlined permitting standards in place would be wonderful. At the state level, aside from pushing down requirements to the local jurisdictions, state governments can offer best practices and help more entities understand what dedicated charging depot or charging station is. We've literally been in places where they'll say, “we're just going to consider you a gas station. And so you're going to have to go through all the permitting as if you’re a gas station, because we don't have the right code in place.”

Sara Baldwin: Oh gosh. Wow. 

Jason Berry: Things of that sort can be really challenging. We’ve also seen in some places requirements to put some housing on your property. They consider it a development, so they want to see multifamily housing on it too. And it's not realistic. 

There are some interesting things out there, and it takes a lot of knowledge and know-how to get through the process in multiple, jurisdictions. 

Sara Baldwin: Those are fascinating examples. In a lot of ways what you're describing is so reminiscent of the very early years of solar and energy storage, and there are still places that struggle with those technologies, even though they've been around for decades. 

I think there, there's probably an electrification playbook that needs to be shared with the state and local governments. But, it's harder because grid infrastructure is not as pretty as solar. So, there is more work to be done, for sure. Sounds like you need to triple, triple the size of your team. 

Jason Berry: Yeah, we're working on that! 

Sara Baldwin: Good. What are you most excited about as you look out to the future? 

Jason Berry: I think I'm most excited about the truck driver experience. When they transition from a diesel or conventional truck to an EV, they don't want to go back. They absolutely love how EVs drive, the lack of operations and maintenance, the fact that they're quiet. They accelerate really fast. They just love everything about them, and I think that kind says a lot about the product and the experience. So, I think that's one of the great benefits. 

Then, there are all the environmental attributes obviously of being able to be a part of electrifying these fleets to decrease the environmental impact. Diesel emissions in a lot of logistic areas are in communities that are impacted by poor air quality. So being able to be a part of the solution is great. 

It's fun to be a part of that and to see how things are changing in the world so quickly. And I love having the opportunity to build the sites. It's a really hard challenge, so it's very satisfying when you see one come online and being used. 

Sara Baldwin: I love that. What does success look like for your industry in five or 10 years?

Jason Berry: Wow. I would say major fleet charging depots in every metro area in North America, Europe, Asia. We're going to see that happen very fast, I think. And we're seeing just the tip of it today, I think. So, five years from now, I think we're going to see millions of vehicles in the road, whether it's rideshare, heavy-duty, medium-duty vehicles, sharing the road with all of our other vehicles and just being able to accelerate from there. 

I think it's always harder to get from zero to one, and that's the phase that we're in right now is getting from zero to one.

The next step is figuring out how to scale this. Of course there are challenges along the road to that success, but we're innovating along the way. For example, we're working on energy management onsite battery storage, solar onsite taking flexible load from the utility, doing more with less.

Those are some of the things that we're working on to try to sustain momentum. 

Sara Baldwin: Absolutely. And we don't have time today to discuss  managed charging and onsite solar and storage opportunities, but there is so much to be done to make sure that these large depots and other charging infrastructure are beneficial to grid. Because EV charging is inherently flexible and can be managed in a way that does not strain the grid, but in ways that can alleviate pressures.

Jason, it's been great to chat with you, and I'm thrilled to know more about the work you're doing. It's very important and I'm glad you're at the helm. So, I have more optimism that I did starting the show.

Anything else that you'd like to add or highlight that we haven't chatted about? 

Jason Berry: I think we are in a moment with a lot of challenges, but we need to continue to plow forward. Relentless forward progress. I'm looking forward to seeing what the next five, 10 years looks like from here.

Sara Baldwin: Yes. And you can proudly say you were at the beginning of a very exciting movement. It's always fun to look back and say, “Oh yeah, we did that. That's cool.” 

Jason Berry: Yeah. We certainly have seen a lot happen around here. 

Sara Baldwin: Yes, we have. It's been great to chat with you, Jason. Thank you so much for your time and for what you're doing. I look forward to staying in touch and seeing what happens.

Jason Berry: Always a pleasure, Sara. Thank you very much for the time. Look forward to talking to you again. 

Sara Baldwin: My pleasure. I'm your host, Sara Baldwin, and you're plugged in to Electrify This!

Electrify This! is an Energy Innovation original podcast. Energy innovation is a non-partisan energy and climate policy think tank. We provide customized research and analysis to decision makers to support policy design that reduces emissions at the speed and scale required for a safe climate future. 

Note: This transcript is based on the conversation but is not verbatim. Some sections have been shortened or deleted for space and efficiency. Please refer to the original podcast for the full conversation. 

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