CARB offers incentives for carbon neutral port equipment

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has opened the second round of its Clean Off-Road Equipment Voucher Incentive Project (CORE), providing point-of-sale discounts on off-road zero-emission equipment, including port equipment.

The project is administered by CALSTART – a national nonprofit consortium focused on building a prosperous, efficient and clean high-tech transportation industry – and has $125m in funding available, more than double the amount allocated to the project when it first launched in January 2020.

CORE supports equipment categories that include on- and off-road terminal tractors, large forklifts and cargo-handling equipment, commercial harbour craft, mobile power units and mobile shore-power cable management systems, and truck- and trailer-mounted transport refrigeration units.

Qualified participants will receive vouchers for point-of-sale discounts on applicable equipment, up to a maximum of $500,000 per voucher. There is no requirement for them to scrap, sell or retire existing equipment.

The first round of CORE resulted in over 460 vouchers for vehicles and electric vehicle supply equipment totaling over $62m, with terminal tractors being the most requested equipment type.