eDepotPlanner

Make sure your fleet can get the energy it needs before you buy chargers

Lower project costs
Reduce your electricity costs
Reduce labor costs

ChargeSim is a design and analysis software that helps fleet operators, charger providers, and utilities to find the right chargers and utility capacity for their fleet.

eDepotPlanner software was built to help professionals design more effective charging infrastructure, balancing the needs of successfully charging the vehicles against operational costs like energy and vehicle movements versus capital costs like more chargers and bigger utility connections. 

a bus charging with a pantographscreenshot of ChargeSim animation

EV Charging is easy to size wrong.... we help get it right

Early charging installations often had far too many chargers, increasing project costs and delaying utility connections. Underinstalling, and not being able to fully charge the fleet on harsh days is also a risk. ChargeSim eDepotPlanner helps you find the right balance for your fleet.

transformers at a substation

Plan your depot in a few steps...

An example of a schedule

Load your Schedule

  • Load your schedule from GTFS, XLSX, VDV-452 or other formats
  • Understand which routes can easily be electrified and potential on-route charging options
  • Adjust and optimise for electric operation
  • Calculations and Optimisers help you estimate and define possible designs
  • Evaluate several sites, such as vehicles which take recovery at other depots or use on-route chargers.

Configure your Depot

  • Setup your depot layout including lanes and charger selection
  • Explore different workflows, charger and parking arrangements
  • Configure multiple-output and multi-module chargers
  • Include preconditioning, cleaning and other on-base activities
The layout UI in action

Simulate your Electric Operation

  • Predict and optimise electricity load profiles and costs.
  • Evaluate cost tradeoffs between chargers, labor and energy costs
  • Software provides suggestions for improvements
  • Animations help understand and explain outcomes

Understand, Communicate, Iterate & Optimize

  • Export results in .xlsx, .csv, .docx, .svg, .png
  • Powerful visualisations let you understand and explain issues and impacts
  • Revision management lets you compare and evaluate options
  • Iterate and try options within minutes & compare results
A plot of daily power use

Charge Smart

Our e-bus fleet software solution allows you to explore different options for utility capacity, charger selection, on base workflow and smart charging strategies. Often, simple operational changes like parking sequence can substantially improve performance, if you have the tool to find them. Contact us for more information.

A laptop running chargesim

Book your free demo now

The eDepotPlanner is a software solution that helps you plan, optimize and manage your transition to a zero emission bus fleet. Want to learn more about our e-bus fleet software solution and find out if it could benefit your business?Book a demo, and we’ll explore the software together in a short call.

Frequently asked questions

How does your software enable me to save money?

It is important to know your energy demand prior to construction of a project. By calculating the power requirements upfront, you can get the right utility capacity. Avoid having too little power, and not being able to charge, or wasting time and money on unnecessary capacity.

Electricity grid capacity is becoming increasingly scarce in many markets, so being able to fit your operation within a smaller available capacity can often mean further electricity grid construction isn't required, saving considerable costs and project delays.

With a big fleet coming and going it is a difficult puzzle to find the best setup for your needs. In our software you can load your transport schedule, energy prices and solar profiles to find clear insights in your requirements and potential savings.

Our visualizations and reporting help you quickly understand the tradeoffs and find the lowest cost solution for you.

How much time does a simulation take?

For planning simulations, typically a few minutes.

For OCPP simulations it will depend on the backoffice and how fast you can accelerate the operation. Depending on your backoffice setup accelerated operation may require some adaptations since the OCPP protocol is only designed for real-time use. (e.g. 1kWh will be delivered in under 1h in accelerated mode, but if the backoffice cross checks this it could cause a warning.)

In real time mode it will take as long as you intend to simulate.

How can I download the simulation results?

The results can be downloaded in various formats such as .csv, .xlsx ,.docx, .png, .svg and .jpg depending on the data. You can generate full summary reports for simulations in .docx format and download most raw data in .xlsx

Does ChargeSim do real time charger control?

No, ChargeSim is purely a design and testing tool. Our planing tools are usually used before chargers are purchased to select the most suitable setup and are vendor agnostic. They can be used to help improve workflows and smart charging of existing sites. Our OCPP tools can be used to test, validate, demonstrate and train people on smart charging software that will later control the actual chargers. We don’t make software for day-to-day operation of depots and smart charging. There are several vendors who do, and our tools can help you get an unbiased view on the value they can add.

How do I import schedule data into ChargeSim?

We can use a proprietary excel format, or GTFS which is often available publicly from agencies. Other formats like KV1 and VDV452 are supported. These schedules can also help with planning on-route charging.

We would like to charge our vehicles in multiple locations, can the software handle such a setup?

Our software supports multi-site operation. Simulations can have vehicles scheduled to charge at many different locations, such as a depot and transit exchanges.

We don’t know what is the most effective workflow for our facility, cleaning before charging or charging before cleaning.

With eDepotPlanner you can try different combinations virtually and see what will be most effective for your operation.

In our depot vehicles are sometimes “blocked” due to lane parking, does the software take situations like this into account?

The software can simulate nose-to-tail lane parking, including evaluating if parking positions are obstructed by other parked vehicles, or vehicles are blocked in and unable to leave until vehicles further ahead have departed.

How many vehicles can we simulate in the software?

This depends on your subscription, our subscription tiers scale with the number of vehicles. We can simulate hundreds of vehicles.