depot
/ˈdɛpəʊ/ noun- A place where vehicles are kept and maintained.
- Where a fleet sleeps and wakes up charged.
27 January 2026 · Rotterdam · 1 minute
Forty vans, one cable, and the long night they share
A depot is a grid problem with a timetable. Forty vans come back between five and seven in the evening and must leave, full enough, between six and eight in the morning. The connection to the street was sized for a warehouse, not a fleet.
1
The night
A van that drives 120 km a day needs about 30 kWh back.
Forty vans at 30 kWh each is 1,200 kWh over a night of eleven hours: just over 109 kW on average. The connection allows 150 kW. On paper it fits. In the evening, with every van plugged in at once and asking for 11 kW, it is three times over.
2
Taking turns
The answer is a schedule:
- the vans leaving first charge first;
- the vans that drove furthest get more;
- nobody gets less than they need by morning.
The depot never exceeds its connection, and no driver ever notices. That sentence is the whole specification. Everything else is detail. See demand.