Bus Depot Simulator: Steady-State Python and DigSilent Co-simulation for Large-Scale Electric Bus Depots

Increasing number of electric vehicles, including electric buses, requires installation of an appropriate charging infrastructure. In order to analyze the depot operation, as well as the eventual grid impact of this infrastructure, it is necessary to develop electrical models for steady-state and dynamic simulations. This paper presents the Bus Depot Simulator, a new approach for steady state simulation of large-scale electric bus depots. Bus Depot Simulator is a co-simulation platform based on Python and DigSilent. By the maximum utilization of both software packages, it allows fast and automatic simulation of different user defined scenarios. This paper describes the main principles and functionalities of the co-simulation platform. An example of a typical co-simulation output is demonstrated with a load profile analysis for two different scenarios, based on the data from bus depot Alsterdorf in the city of Hamburg. Scenarios include average delays of bus arrival to the depot of 3 and 6 min.