For EV installers, operators and developers, predicting how many charge points are needed, what charge point types (slow, fast, rapid, ultra-rapid) and where they should be located is inherently difficult without the right data.
Without the right information, EV solution providers and planners risk spending excessively, losing revenues and wasting time on excessive physical assessments. Sites take time to survey in person and the connection to the electricity grid can be both expensive and slow to obtain.
Access to granular data about charging demand, network capacity, Public Transport Accessibility Levels, and location suitability is now available on a cloud based platform to support EV Solution providers in identifying the optimal locations, avoiding wasted effort, collaborating with key stakeholders and evidencing the siting of EV Charge points.
LAEP+ is a collaborative web-based mapping and design tool that helps EV Solution Providers, Local Authorities and Distribution Network Operators come together to plan and accelerate the roll out of Electric Vehicle Charge points.
Web based and cloud based enables the data to be kept up to date, shared across different groups as well as it being visualised, over-layed and brought together in one place.
By bringing LAEP+ to the market, our aim is to support those responsible in transitioning to renewable energy faster, cost-effectively and collaboratively from project inception, design, delivery and final implementation.
The tool has been a strong asset to our EV team, allowing us to assess and shortlist potential charge point sites based on a number of factors including network capacity, availability of off-street parking and proximity to existing charge points. This is an invaluable step saving time and resources in the implementation process.
Project RESOP (Regional Energy System Optimisation Planning) aims to take a ‘whole system’ approach, by drawing together data from multiple sources into a single tool that can be used to plan retrofit and roll out of low carbon technologies (LCTs) like electric vehicle charge points.
In November 2021, following a public tender process, Advanced Infrastructure was appointed to provide an energy mapping tool for project LEO utilising Advanced Infrastructure’s LAEP+ software service. This provided an excellent opportunity to test and validate the value of geospatial solutions for local area energy planning.
In June 2021, Advanced Infrastructure and EB Charging were awarded funding from the Office for Zero Emission Vehicles to specify and build a cloud-based siting tool for EV charge points. The output was EV Site, an EV focussed instance of our planning tool LAEP+. Advanced Infrastructure’s Head of Product, Lily Cairns Haylor, discusses the challenges of siting EV charge points at scale and the ways digital approaches might accelerate the tricky process.
