Cenex are providing strategy advice to the NHS Net Zero Travel & Transport team in support of the NHS transition to net zero. The NHS team identified that a tool allowing NHS Trusts to assess and plan for recharging infrastructure to support Battery Electric emergency Vehicles (BEV) would help to accelerate each trust’s shift to zero emission (ZE) vehicles.

Emergency vehicles are unique in that their deployment can be 24 hours a day, they have a limited amount of time to recharge before their next journey and their deployments are reactive to circumstance rather than planned. This means that the traditional charging model of a long overnight charge cannot be relied upon.

Whilst the transition to fully electric emergency vehicle fleets is still some years away, trusts need to understand their likely energy and power needs in the future to inform strategic estate and operations management decisions today.

EVRIT was developed to make a first estimate of the charging infrastructure needed to support opportunistic charging of a transitioned NHS fleet, where vehicles make use of short charging opportunities through their daily operation instead of a long overnight charge.

The tool uses real-world operational data from an existing NHS trust ambulance fleet to simulate the charging requirements of an electrified fleet. Factors such as the type of site (Hospital, Ambulance Station) and the urban density of its location are then used to estimate the potential charging demand at any similar NHS site, allowing the tool to be used in the first planning stages in other locations.