The council’s bin depot needs to upgrade its power supply before more electric vehicles can be charged on the site in Hollingdean.
And the local electricity sub-station is also likely to need a capacity boost in case extra electric bin lorries risk knocking out the power supply not just at the depot but in the surrounding area too.
The constraints emerged at a Brighton and Hove City Council cabinet meeting as a leading councillor updated colleagues on efforts to modernise the rubbish and recycling service.
The reliability of the service has been hampered by old diesel bin lorries that keep breaking down, with many of them still in use beyond the end of their recommended serviceable life.
The council has been keen to replace them with electric vehicles although EVs cost much more to buy.
In 2022, for example, the council spent more than £2.3 million on four electric side-lifting “refuse collection vehicles” (RCVs) to empty the largest communal bins – mostly in the centre of Brighton and Hove – which have a capacity of 3,200 litres.
At £580,000 each, they were almost twice as expensive as the £325,000 diesel equivalent.
But the cost of replacing the ageing fleet of bin lorries goes beyond just the purchase or lease costs of the vehicles themselves, with maintenance and charging costs to consider.
The council is also having to expand the service to include food waste collections in the current financial year which started at the beginning of April.
And with the power supply issue still to be resolved, the pace of change looks likely to be slower than many would like – politicians and the public alike.
Questions of electrical supply capacity as more people switch to electric vehicles is not confined to the bin depot or the council but it came to light as officials tried to work out how best to replace its older lorries.
A report to the cabinet meeting that was held earlier this month noted an investment of almost £4 million in 2025-26 to buy replacement vehicles for environmental services, formerly known as Cityclean, as well as vehicles for food waste collection.
Councillor Tim Rowkins, the council’s cabinet member for net zero and environmental services, said: “We are well ahead of other local authorities when it comes to fully electric vehicles.
“We have 87 EVs in our fleet, including 12 fully electric HGV refuse collection vehicles. Such a large electric fleet places significant demands on our charging infrastructure.
“To help inform our ongoing vehicle procurement programme, we are in the process of assessing the capacity of our own charging network and the local electrical substation capacity.
“Early indications are that we are currently operating at the upper limits of the substation capacity and that upgrades would be required in order to continue to procure EVs although there is further work to be done.
“We are currently investigating a range of possible options to increase capacity and when we have firm recommendations in place, we will share these with residents.
“This is part of a wider modernisation process taking place within environmental services, designed to help us deliver the service residents deserve.”
And they won’t be able to as the grid is at it’s maximum. Not a substation only issue but a main supply. There’s a reason why the new orders are all for Euro 6 diesels. Silver lining is that at least the diesels are cheaper to purchase per unit so a larger amount of the end of life scrap can be replaced
What is the grid’s capacity? I presume you are writing about the National Grid. As I write it is providing 23 GW. I have seen it provide 35 GW. So it’s not at capacity. Locally, as the article suggests, more power infrastructure needs to be provided, but a lot of the power will be needed at night, when the vehicles are not in use and are charging. Costly, but not worth panicking over.
At capacity for the area. Upgrading the substation into the depot isn’t going to cut it as Veolia next door has the same issue. The main supply needs upgrading and that would be from the primary station (see NODD)
Net Zero is unachievable, unaffordable and unnecessary as well as being hugely damaging to the environment. It will bankrupt the Country and bring nothing but food and fuel poverty.
And for what?
To reduce our less than 1% of Global emissions!
The last time I remember widespread, rolling power cuts in this country was in the 1970s energy crisis, when we were almost totally dependent upon fossil fuel burning for electricity generation. The recent spike in energy bill prices was due to the issues around gas supply due to the war in Ukraine. Until clean energy was hijacked as a right wing political and culture war, this country had quietly replaced all of its coal burning generation with renewables – a stunning engineering achievement. If pace continues it will make us far less dependent upon those who control the prices and politics of fossil fuel supply. And yes, whatever the percentage of emissions saved, surely it is better to use renewable sources than one-shot burning of fossil fuel for all of our energy demands. Yes there are infrastructure issues to deal with – surely a good thing, creating jobs and making a more resilient system.
Agreed but unfortunately Helen can’t think for herself and is quoting Nigel farages protest party, instead of doing some basic thinking and realising that making our own electricity is actually a patriotic thing rather than giving the likes of Putin and the Saudis money for gas and oil…
Pretty much all the power in Brighton is coming in from the coast so surly it’s time the government rolled out the local power costs. Our bills will be extremely low as a result.
The obvious question is whether the depot is actually in the right place. It’s so residential around there it doesn’t make logical sense when it then has to go and trundle waste off to the incinerator in Newhaven and now the food waste to Lewes.
It gets tipped at Veolia next door to the depot. They either move it Newhaven or export it (recycling)
The electric vehicles famously break down and run out of juice. All part of the Green gift from cllr Davis.
Did residents really ask for battery refuse trucks?
Just buy some new diesels. Far greener since they last much longer, take far more waste, don’t break down as often and don’t require expensive and unsustainable infrastructure.
Also diesels are, on average, a tenth of the price so EV dust carts will never satisfy financial VFM criteria.
A 10th of the price?
Where did you pull that patently wrong figure from?
Because the figures in the article show that diesel trucks are 75% of the purchase cost of the electric ones
Nice to see some mildy positive news about City Clean for once. …..”Living the dream @ City clean” so the saying goes !
The intention was to develop the Hollingdean Depot into housing but they forgot
– who wants to live next to dump
– the canteen building is listed
Bin lorries parkrd up by ASDA and Hove tip plus other sites including some next to the Veolia rats nest. Not being able to do this meant more communal bins and the stupidly expensive bins and lorries it needs.
Monumentally expensive shit show of a contract signed by ESCC + BHCC with Veolia Southdown. Only one lead in that contract and it’s the one with the most money and lawyers.