Africans embrace solar-powered charging hubs to move heavy trucks away from diesel
NAIROBI, Kenya — Across Africa’s freight corridors, where diesel-powered trucks and fragile electricity grids have long hampered reliability, a new clean-transport frontier is taking shape: solar-powered charging hubs tailored for heavy-duty electric trucks.
At the forefront is Charge (Zero Carbon Charge), a Cape Town–based company pushing this technology forward. Its approach mirrors successful global models like WattEV in California and Milence—a Daimler Truck and Volvo joint venture—both of which have already established solar-powered charging hubs to support high-capacity freight charging.
Charge is deploying two fully off-grid, solar-powered charging stations along South Africa’s busiest freight and passenger route, the corridor between Johannesburg and Durban. This comes after a pilot that demonstrated a heavy-duty electric truck could be fully charged using only solar energy.
The rollout along the 570-kilometer (354-mile) N3 highway—an essential link between South Africa’s economic hub and its primary port—is backed by a $6.2 million equity investment from the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA). The fund, announced last July, required Charge to develop off-grid charging infrastructure every 150 kilometers (about 90 miles) along national roads.
Charge expects to complete the two stations by June, enabling long-distance electric travel on one of the country’s most important transport corridors.
Co-founder Joubert Roux explained that the next phase will extend off-grid, ultra-fast charging along the N1 corridor, connecting Johannesburg to Cape Town and broadening access across South Africa’s major long-distance routes.
Each off-grid site carries a price tag of roughly $1.25 million.
Roux added, “This investment lets us move from pilot tests to full-scale deployment. We’ve proven it’s possible to fully charge electric trucks with solar energy, and now we’re building the infrastructure to do it commercially and reliably.”
In January, Charge showcased its model by simultaneously charging two heavy-duty electric trucks from China’s SANY Trucks and four passenger EVs, proving the system can service mixed fleets.
Other African clean-transport players have mostly targeted electric motorcycles. Kenyan firms such as Spiro and Ampersand have started to weave renewable energy into parts of their battery-swapping networks—mostly outside major cities—but these projects are hybrid setups rather than fully off-grid networks designed for heavy trucks.
While South Africa’s EV imports are rising, charging networks remain sparse and concentrated in urban centers. Heavy-duty trucks, with their high energy demands, face additional challenges such as the need for high-capacity charging sites and a grid that is stretched thin by demand, even as the national utility strives to keep up.
Roux emphasized the goal: to build energy-resilient charging hubs that don’t depend on a fragile grid. By pairing solar with storage, Charge aims to deliver predictable, clean power to freight fleets.
Roux acknowledged several risks ahead, including regulatory delays for site approvals, high import duties, truck certification requirements, and limited availability of suitable vehicles.
“Fleet operators must decarbonize, but they also need solutions that make commercial sense,” he noted. “This investment enables us to deploy infrastructure for logistics, mining, and long-haul transport. We believe this model can cut emissions while boosting energy security.”
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