Over 40% of all imported goods to the United States flow through the Los Angeles and Long Beach port complexes. These ports are in the Los Angeles-Long Beach metro area, which is home to some of the worst air quality in the nation.

Toyota Logistics Services (TLS) Long Beach is the largest of three main Toyota port facilities for North American import/export. TLS Long Beach processes about 200,000 vehicles a year and is the only point of import for the Toyota Mirai fuel cell electric vehicle.

Toyota is completing a renovation of the TLS port facility that completely reimagines how the facility impacts people and planet. Using LEED® standards as a guide, the renovation includes projects that aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, strengthen the economy and improve public health and air quality in a disadvantaged community. 

The TLS Long Beach renovation consists of three major elements:

The TLS Long Beach facility reconstruction is expected to improve vehicle flow and increase processing efficiencies.

The Portal Truck / Heavy-Duty Vehicle Hydrogen Fueling Station will be part of a five-station heavy-duty fueling network for the Los Angeles basin that provides multiple sources of hydrogen throughout the region.

The Trigeneration (Trigen) Direct Fuel Cell Power Plant will supply the hydrogen to the fueling stations. Bio-gas sourced from agricultural waste will produce high quality, 100% renewable hydrogen fuel for PORTAL Heavy-Duty Truck (HDT) and Mirai.

At full utilization, Trigen is expected to produce 1.2 tons of renewable hydrogen daily, capable of supporting 10,000 Mirai processed by the port annually, and a fleet of 20 or more Class 8 fuel cell electric trucks operating drayage routes. The elimination of diesel trucks from port operations is expected to result in an annual reduction of over 5,800 MT CO2e and 4.9 tons of NOx, while reducing diesel consumption by over 420,000 gallons per year, resulting in a significant positive environmental impact.

Trigen will also generate renewable electricity to power Toyota’s onsite logistics operations, which will make TLS Long Beach the first Toyota port operations in the world to use 100% renewable electricity from onsite generation.

The Trigen powerplant is sized at 2.3 MW (2,300 kW), which should produce roughly 1,700 kW of renewable, zero carbon electricity more than what we need. Toyota plans to provide this surplus to the local community, which should be enough to power almost 2,500 homes within West Long Beach and Wilmington annually. The generated electricity’s zero carbon renewable attributes are validated by the California Public Utilities Commission’s BioMat Tariff.

Additionally, Trigen will generate water to supplement municipal water for the onsite carwash – an important element, given the port’s location in an area of high water stress. 

Translated into action, Trigen will be used by TLS to fuel imported Mirais with 100% renewable fuel. Those transported to dealers using fuel cell trucks will be fueled by 100% renewable fuel and have zero emissions, delivering to customers in a sustainable way.

TLS Long Beach has applied for LEED certification under the USGBC’s LEED for New Construction rating system. LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy savings, stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts, and improved indoor environmental quality. Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED provides building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solutions. LEED is able to be applied to all building types, commercial as well as residential. It works throughout the building lifecycle: design and construction, operations and maintenance, tenant fit-outs, and significant retrofits.