The efficiency and profitability of electric fleets depend significantly on the availability of reliable charging infrastructure. Depot charging is a preferred strategy as vehicles can be charged directly at the company`s sites. This mitigates the risk of operational delays caused by waiting times at public charging stations. Yet, the electrification of depots and service yards goes along with high investment, operation and grid integration costs. Investment decisions are therefore preceded by tailored utilization and profitability analysis. As a rule, infrastructure is designed to serve the daily charging demand of the own company fleet and employees. It is accessible to a limited user group and its overall utilization level is generally low. This raises the question: can the value of investment be maximized by opening private chargers to external (non-company related) user groups at times when they are not in use? And if so, how can sharing of private charging infrastructure be operationalized in an intelligent way?

The project FAMOUS studies the potential of charging infrastructure sharing and demonstrates how an innovative booking platform can optimize the utilization rate of private chargers. The sharing platform is an online marketplace that brings together charging station owners and EV users. Via the platform charging station owners offer free charging slots to external users with complementary charging needs. They can define themselves the user groups, set up individual booking times for each charging station or location. Through the platform, the authorized groups of users receive exclusive and reliable access to the shared infrastructure and can reserve it during the times defined by the charging station owner. Pre-bookable charging stations prevent users from having to wait on-site to find an available charging point.

The booking platform supports the integration of electromobility with the electricity grid as the online booking system delivers valuable data on estimated power consumption to the local grid operator. Based on this data, the grid operator can forecast estimated peaks in demand more accurate and take proactive actions to guarantee grid stability.

Besides technical aspects, FAMOUS investigates the current legal and regulatory framework for infrastructure sharing and studies the complexity of billing and tariff models. The project addresses questions of access control and users’ authorization at the depot location. It draws recommendations for the integration of sharing concepts in fleet operational processes. FAMOUS develops a strategy for equipping the properties of the City of Hamburg with (shareable) charging infrastructure. The strategy is prepared in close collaboration with the local authorities and will feed into the city’s overall charging infrastructure planning.