CHARGE+ZONE is powering 500+ e-buses across key cities in India – Kartikey Hariyani • EVreporter

In a recent chat with team EVreporter, Kartikey Hariyani, Founder & CEO at CHARGE+ZONE, shared about their e-bus charging operations.

What is CHARGE+ZONE current scale and footprint in e-bus charging?

Since 2019, CHARGE+ZONE has been progressively investing and developing large EV charging hubs for various e-mobility companies such as Ashok Leyland and GreenCell Mobility. We are powering 500+ Electric Buses with a network of 125+ Super Fast DC Points in the cities of Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Patna, Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Kanpur, Varanasi & now extending to Bangalore. In line with the Central Government’s FAME II policy for Electric Buses and led by State/City Transportation Units, most of these charging stations are built under the CCS2 charging protocol.

Can you share some usage statistics from your current e-bus charging operations in terms of units consumed, number of charging sessions completed and vehicles fuelled on a daily basis?

Approx. 23,000+ sessions with 17,00,000+ kWh are consumed every month through our current Electric Bus Fast DC Charging Network. Our charging stations can power an electric bus with full charge up to 80% in 90 minutes. The charging protocol is CCS2 & GB/T depending on the Electric Bus OEM specifications.

What are the power infrastructure requirements for e-bus charging stations?

Electric Buses’ Charging Station involves a huge infrastructure for SuperfastDC charging. Starting from HT 33KV/11kV Switchyard with Distribution Transformer supplying with required LT 3 phase AC supply which is then rectified to high power DC by each charging point.

What is the role of software in running the e-bus charging operations efficiently? Do you have a provision for load balancing and grid communication?

The key differentiation that makes us unique is that our technology is powered by IoT, through ‘Over-the-air’ flow of data and the use of Cloud base solutions to give a ‘Best-in-Class’ customer experience. We aim to build software solutions which will help have ‘Unmanned Charging Stations’ providing quality charging services, with remote control and monitoring, thus making them 24×7 available to EV drivers. Provisions for load balancing and grid communication are currently under working mode and we shall soon make them operational for upcoming charging networks.