Recent predictions are that cheaper batteries and the falling cost of manufacturing will accelerate market adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) to up to 35% of the global auto fleet within the next two decades. To assist state and local governments anticipating this type of growth in PEVs, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has created a new tool called EVI-Pro Lite—a simplified version of the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Projection Tool (EVI-Pro) model.

The tool identifies both existing public electric vehicle charging infrastructure and projects future consumer demand for charging infrastructure by state or city/urban area based on user inputs for the anticipated number of PEVs. NREL will demonstrate EVI-Pro Lite will during an upcoming webinar scheduled Monday, 21 May at 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

EVI-Pro, the more robust model from which the tool draws, was developed in collaboration with the California Energy Commission and support from the US Department of Energy’s Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO). The model uses detailed data from personal vehicle travel patterns, electric vehicle attributes, and charging station characteristics. These data feed the tool’s extensive simulations approach to estimate the quantity and type of charging infrastructure necessary to support regional adoption of electric vehicles.

Assumptions in the EVI-Pro Lite tool are consistent with a recent NREL study conducted using EVI-Pro analysis that investigated charging infrastructure requirements at the national level and relied on advanced PEV simulations using millions of miles of real-world daily driving schedules sourced from large public and commercial travel data sets. EVI-Pro has also been used for detailed planning studies at the regional level in Massachusetts; Columbus, Ohio; and California; as well as a forthcoming study in Maryland.