Inside De Energy Hub app: Parking hubs, charging hubs, and everything in between

When we talk to businesses about managing their car parks and EV chargers, two things come up almost every time. First, they are already sitting on more value than they realise — spaces, chargers, and a steady stream of drivers who need them. Second, managing all of that with a mix of paper notes, verbal agreements, and disconnected systems is quietly costing them time, revenue, and sanity.

De Energy Hub was built to fix both problems. The app is organised around two core ideas — Parking Hubs and EV Charging Hubs — that work independently or together depending on what your site actually needs. Here is a proper look at what each one does, and how the whole system fits together.

What is a Parking Hub?

A Parking Hub is how De Energy Hub represents any car park or collection of spaces that a business wants to make bookable. Whether you manage a hotel forecourt with 30 spaces, an office campus with 200, or a small retail yard with 15 bays, the process is the same: you create a Hub, add your individual spaces, and the system takes it from there.

Once a hub is live, each space gets a unique QR code that you print and place in the bay. Drivers can search by location in the app to book that space in advance, or scan the code to identify the space, then check in via the app on arrival, pay through the app, and receive a confirmation. On your end, you're notified when a guest checks in or out, and can see sessions in progress on your bookings screen.

What changes day to day is how you configure the Hub. You control:

• Availability windows — when spaces can be booked (working hours only, evenings and weekends, 24/7, or any custom combination)
• Session durations — minimum and maximum booking lengths, and whether pre-booking is required or walk-up scanning is allowed
• Pricing — hourly, daily, flat session rates, or completely free with promo code access for staff and guests
• Buffer times — automatic gaps between sessions to allow for turnover
• Overstay notifications — alerts sent to drivers when their session is ending or has expired

For businesses that have always run their car parks on a first-come-first-served basis, the shift to a Parking Hub is significant. You move from a guessing game to a predictable, transparent system where you and your drivers both know exactly what is happening and when.

What is an EV Charging Hub?

An EV Charging Hub works on the same principle as a Parking Hub — but it is built specifically around your EV chargers. Each physical charger at your site gets added to the Hub and receives its own unique QR code. Drivers can search by location to book a session in advance, or scan the code at the charger to identify it, then check in via the app to start the session — with the option to photograph the charger at check-in and check-out to confirm usage — and pay when they are done.

Unlike many EV charging systems that require you to replace your existing chargers with proprietary hardware, De Energy Hub works with what you already have installed. You are not buying new equipment — you are adding a booking and payment layer on top of your current setup.

The Charging Hub keeps you on top of every charger on your site:

• Check-in and check-out notifications — you're notified when a guest starts and finishes a session, and can see sessions in progress on your bookings screen
• Energy tracking — kWh delivered is logged per session and per charger
• Revenue tracking — see income per charger and in total, on your home screen
• Session history — a full log of every charge that has taken place, visible in past and upcoming bookings
• Flexible pricing — charge per kWh, per session, per hour, or offer complimentary sessions with a promo code

For hotels offering EV charging as a guest amenity, this is transformative. Instead of chargers that sit in the car park with no oversight and no revenue, you have a managed, bookable resource that pays its own way.

Linked and unlinked: how the two Hubs work together

Here is where De Energy Hub gets genuinely powerful for businesses that have both parking and EV charging. You can run a Parking Hub and a Charging Hub completely independently — separate pricing, separate QR codes, separate revenue streams — or you can link them together into a single combined experience for drivers.

When you link a Parking Hub and a Charging Hub, you create a Park & Charge session. The driver books both the space and the charger in a single transaction. You set one combined price, or let the system add the two individually. Either way, the driver arrives, parks, plugs in, scans to identify the space and charger, checks in via the app, and pays — one session managing both.

This matters for scenarios that come up constantly:

• Hotels — offer guests free parking and paid charging, or a combined overnight rate that includes both.
• Retail parks — free parking with paid charging keeps footfall flowing while recovering charger infrastructure costs.
• Offices — staff book a specific bay and a charger simultaneously during working hours. No more morning arguments over EV spaces.
• Event venues — sell Park & Charge packages to attendees in advance, with specific bays and chargers reserved on arrival.

The four pricing models

Whether your Hubs are linked or unlinked, De Energy Hub supports four main approaches to pricing. Most businesses find they want a different model depending on the time of day or the type of user — and the app handles that without manual management.

QR codes: the physical layer that makes it all work

Every space and every charger in De Energy Hub gets a unique QR code. These are not generic codes that open the app homepage — each one is tied to a specific resource at a specific location. A driver can search by location in the app to find and book that space or charger in advance, or scan the code on arrival — when a driver scans the code on Bay 7, the app knows it is Bay 7 at your specific site, opens the booking for that space, and shows the driver exactly what is available and what it costs.

You generate these codes directly from the app. The process takes seconds per space. You have two options:

• Standard QR codes — clean, black-and-white, print-ready formats in PNG or PDF. Laminate them and place them on bollards, walls, or spaces.
• Branded QR codes — customise the colours, add your logo to the centre, and download a version that matches your property's look and feel.

The physical installation is genuinely minimal. Most businesses are fully deployed — codes printed, laminated, and placed — in under a day. No sensors to wire up, no barriers to install, no contractor visit required.

The business dashboard: everything in one place

Behind the QR codes and the driver experience, De Energy Hub gives businesses a clean, straightforward dashboard where everything is visible at once. You do not need a dedicated parking manager or a technical background to use it.

What the driver experience actually looks like

All of the above is the business side. But it only works if the experience is simple enough for every driver to use without instructions. Here is what a typical session looks like from a driver's perspective.

A guest can search by location in the app to book ahead of arrival, or, on arrival at a hotel, see the QR code sign at the entrance to the car park and scan it with their phone camera. De Energy Hub app opens — or prompts them to download it if it is their first time. They see the available spaces, pick their duration, confirm the price, and pay. They receive a booking confirmation with the space number and their check-out time. If they need to charge, they walk to the charger, scan that QR code to identify it, and check in via the app to start their charging session — with the option to photograph the charger to confirm usage at check-in and check-out. When time is running low, they get a notification.

For returning users who already have the app installed, this whole process takes under a minute.

Getting started on De Energy Hub

De Energy Hub is live now on the App Store and Google Play, open to Irish businesses across every sector. Download the app to create your host account, and get in touch if you'd like help getting set up.

The setup process for a typical site takes under an hour: create your account, add your locations, build your Hubs, configure pricing, generate QR codes, and go live.

As an early host, you also get direct access to the product team and a real say in how new features get built — the platform is still shaped by the businesses actually using it.

App features current as of August 2026. De Energy Hub is live on the App Store and Google Play — availability and onboarding details may change, see deenergyhub.ie/app for the latest.

✍️ David, De Energy Hub