A new dedicated charging hub for electric HGVs has opened at the Port of Tilbury, offering high-capacity, shared-use charging in a location with heavy truck traffic and strong links to London logistics.
The site has a stated capacity of 5MW and is equipped with 16 ultra-rapid chargers, allowing up to 16 electric trucks to charge at the same time. Its location inside the port is intended to support zero-emission HGVs operating in and through Tilbury and along the A13 corridor into London.
The project received £1 million from the UK government’s Thames Freeport Seed Capital Programme, with further support via the Zero Emission HGV and Infrastructure Demonstrator (ZEHID) Programme, funded by the Department for Transport in partnership with Innovate UK.
Technical specifications released for the hub show a mixed charging set-up. Siemens supplied six Flex 540kW chargers plus 12 Flex 500A dispensers arranged across three charging islands. The operator says the islands can be upgraded to Megawatt Charging System (MCS) capability. In addition, four charging points supplied by Power Electronics are described as delivering up to 270kW per point, with upgrade capacity to 360kW, deployed under the eFREIGHT 2030 project.
The hub is framed as an alternative to depot charging for fleets facing barriers such as limited grid capacity, space constraints, and the cost of installing infrastructure. It is also presented as the first site in a planned wider network of shared commercial-vehicle charging hubs at strategic freight locations.
The facility was formally opened by the Mayor of Thurrock, Sue Shinnick, at an event attended by project partners and fleet customers. Logistics UK chief executive Ben Fletcher said charging infrastructure at this scale, in a strategic location, could help smaller operators transition to electric trucks where depot charging is difficult to deliver.
