How to use the EV charging demand heatmaps

This video is intended to explain the EV Charging Demand Heatmaps in the ConnectMore software tool. ConnectMore covers Merseyside, Cheshire, North Shropshire, North & Mid Wales – the MANWEB license area covered by SP Energy Networks

The ConnectMore tool provides you with predictions of future EV demand for public charging infrastructure. The tool provides a forecast rather than a known outcome so it should only be used as a guide to inform decisions. This dataset was developed by strategic transport and scenario planning experts and Project Charge Partner, PTV Group.

First, click on the ‘next button to select the EV charging demand heatmaps.

The categories of chargepoint included in ConnectMore are public destination, public residential, private workplace and en-route. The tool doesn’t include residential off road chargepoints. Public destination chargepoints include infrastructure at restaurants, shops, leisure centres, tourist attractions and city centre car parks. Public residential chargepoints are those provided in predominantly residential areas without off-street parking. Private workplace charging is infrastructure provided at a place of work primarily for employees. Future demand from these three use cases are show on a single map layer labelled as the ‘LSOA’ layer.

En-route charging is shown on an additional layer of the heatmaps, labelled ‘En-route’. This category is demand that occurs when a vehicle pauses on a journey for the express purpose of charging.

The EV Charging Demand Heatmaps provides predictive data for EV chargepoint demand, both in terms of number and length of charging events, and energy consumption. The data presented is for an average day. For all four categories of chargepoints you can configure for four EV uptake and charging infrastructure scenarios – High and Low EV uptake, and sparce and plentiful charging. Forecast data is available between 2025 and 2050 in 5-year increments.

For private workplace, public residential and public destination charging, predictions are available for small geographical areas known as Lower-Layer Super Output Areas or LSOA’s. (Matching the acronym)

The size of each LSOA will vary depending on population density, but each one has an average population of 1500 people or 650 households. This means LSOAs in rural areas tend to cover a larger geographical area than those in suburban or urban areas.

(Hover over the Llanrwst/Betws-Y-Coed and click on one of the very small coastal LSOA at Colwyn Bay and one of the very large mountainous ones like Capel Curig)

The colour coding of the LSOA’s on the LSOA heatmap is indicative of whether the daily energy demand is within a low, low medium, medium high or high band. When you adjust the EV uptake and charging infrastructure scenarios selected, the daily energy demand of the LSOA will change. This may mean that it will move into a new band and its colour code will change. By altering the tick box selection, you can choose only to be shown LSOA that fall into a selected category.

(Click through scenario from Low/Sparce to Low/Plentiful to High/Plentiful at zoom out 11 over)

When you click on an LSOA, ConnectMore will tell you

• The total daily energy demand in kilowatt hour for chargepoints in that area
• The total number of cars and EVs arriving in each location, and
• The total number of charging sessions per day

Further analysis of the data for each LSOA is also presented in chart form.

(Pan down the graphs on the right-hand side of the screen).

To initially select the en-route data, click the tick the box. You can choose to display both EV charging demand layers together, and individually.

On the en-route heatmaps predictive demand forecast data is available for short stretches of motorways, A and B roads across the MANWEB area. The thicker the line on the map, the higher the charging future demand forecast. Again, the user can select to only see stretched of road that fall into a particular category using the tick boxes.

When you click on a stretch of road forecast data is again displayed in the righthand tool bar. This data includes the total number of EVs using the stretch of road per day and the EV charging demand forecast for that stretch of road.

A further short video has been produced to explain the EV charging demand forecast graphs in more detail.

If you would like to explore the raw data that underpins the LSOA charging demand heatmap in more detail, you can navigate to the LSOA heatmap and download a csv file that includes the full data set by clicking here (Download CSV).

(Click through the process)