Master thesis focusing on heavy-duty lorries

Emma and Sonja, two environmental engineering students specialising in energy systems, are conducting their master’s thesis in collaboration with Mistra Carbon Exit.

Emma Rytterdahl and Sonja Toomingas normally study at the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University.

- But during the spring semester, we have the pleasure of being students at Chalmers University of Technology, as well as collaborating with The Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) to conduct our master’s thesis project with the working name“Electrification of Heavy-Duty Transport in Sweden”, they say.

Heavy-Duty Transport

Emma Rytterdahl and Sonja Toomingas have decided to focus specifically on the Swedish heavy-duty lorry fleet. The aim is to formulate and analyse prospective scenarios of the electrification of the fleet in order to investigate the effects on its carbon footprint over time and to provide a better understanding of how the electrification rate will affect the demand for complementary renewable fuels and critical components.

- Our approach is to create a model describing the potential developments of the fleet until the year 2060 and using prospective life cycle assessment to estimate the carbon footprint, they say.

Electrification of heavy-duty lorries is in the early stages. But a lot is going on to drive the shift, both on the national and EU-level, and just a few weeks ago, the European Commission proposed more ambitious CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles.

Interesting topic

- It's a highly interesting topic to work with, and hopefully, our thesis project can contribute valuable insights for further research as well as to decision-makers and industry actors, says Emma and Sonja.

Emma Rytterdahl and Sonja Toomingas.