Pros and cons of custom and ready-made charging software

Being an eMobility leader in various projects across multiple startups, Piotr was responsible for OCPI and OCPP integration as well as EMP and CPO platforms development. With extensive expertise in the open standards field and eMobility tech solutions, he is leading teams of experienced developers and contributing with invaluable knowledge and experience.

Piotr Majcher

. Wandering through the web of available options, as it is the same for any software, you face the challenge: will the ready-made solution meet your expectations, or maybe it is worth investing in an individual solution that covers 100% of your business needs? Trust me, you are not alone. Having heard this dilemma repeatedly I’ve decided to gather critical thoughts on both sides and present the outcomes.


Stating with some brief basic explanation - Charge Point Operator can be defined as an owner or administrator of charging hardware and software. With a market booming and demanding infrastructure, IT providers offer off-the-shelf solutions.

What are the benefits of a custom CPO platform?

A custom solution is especially beneficial for operators who want to keep the processes 100% up to specific demands. The backend management system for Charge Point Operators is what sets the business on a path to success. The whole charging network demands a properly tailored solution that adequately covers business relations and dependencies. Specifically, in the e-mobility world, supportive backend software should embody device management, business insight, and customer relationship management.

 is a tool for monitoring and managing emerging issues promptly and efficiently. In addition to real-time alerts, it also allows framing price schemes.

provides a transparent glimpse into key metrics on how the charging network is performing. The insights should be given at a fixed frequency and the dashboard should be flexible enough to support deep and extensive business intelligence.

The customer* relationship management module

 stores users’ data, billing information, and contracts.* Here pointing out ‘customer’ we have in mind, eMobility Service Providers.

With customization comes independence. The e-mobility market evolves steadily, hence the charging network needs to follow the novelties and recent updates. Setting focus on what the future can bring, how the trends evolve, and which standards to follow will ease interoperability and scalability. Being self-reliant allows faster implementation of new features, 

 The backend system should provide accurate information in the BI area, consumer behavior and preferences, as well as malfunctions and enable remote repairs. This applies to the basic approach but forward-thinking resonates with more advanced supplements.

The essence of the EV charging business must be met and this is what off-the-shelf software suppliers offer. However, the goal is to develop standards of work and find repetitive behaviors. Based on that, the processes can be adjusted and refined for future changes. The custom approach puts the company one step ahead, ensures better responsiveness, explores specific niches thus finding ways to exploit new opportunities. The e-mobility market reaches a point where multiple operators offer the same or similar services. Further steps towards establishing a pole position, are detailed segmentation and prompt meeting particular divisions' needs.

One of the advantages of a custom solution is access to and control over the source code. This means the upgrades and new deployments are set and prioritized by the owner. Taking a step further, a strong point for which it is good to choose a custom solution is a case when a company intends to do something unique and addresses some existing problem with one and only innovation. Then the chance that it will be covered by some ready-made solution is very low - so it needs to be customized. If there are some patented resolutions, then these certainly will not fit into a ready-made solution.

What are the cons of a custom CPO platform?

The matter of the cost of developing a custom solution depends on the scale. Operating on a relatively small market or having a limited number of charge points will not necessarily require custom software. If so, a ready-made solution will cover our needs and work well. However, if the business assumptions reach forward, addressing the needs of a particular niche or out-of-the-box explications, here customization will be vital.

Besides the cost of a tailor-made solution, the other con is timing. The individual approach requires careful evaluation. This incorporates the whole development process, with a discovery phase, technical clarification, usability design, iterative product development, and further support. Matching technology with business goals and flexible product design to incorporate required changes on-demand fast and seamlessly. Whether it’s eMSP or CPO platform, 

 requires time and commitment from business and IT representatives. Although the initial outlay is large, this approach allows you to identify pain points at an early stage, hence better estimate time and effort, and thus avoid unnecessary expenditures.

Off-the-shelf CPO platform strengths and limitations

Operating on a general course could be successfully supported by vendor-dependent software. These solutions usually cover ongoing common market demands. When working on a relatively small scale, it may perform well. So, the question is ‘Do I really need a custom solution?’. As an alternative, you can acquire an off-the-shelf product. The arguments in favor of purchasing a ready-made solution are faster implementation, lower up-front costs, and your business needs are considered as regular (don't include much specific or novel). In this case, off-the-shelf software will remain more cost-efficient for your business. Usually, ready-made software is the best choice for small business that needs budget resolution.

The difference lies in the vendor’s business goals. The speed of change for upgrades and security updates is affected by the business case and objectives set by the supplier. A question here is whether our needs will be a key priority while obtaining a steady product line. Usually, the ready-made solutions providers are familiar with common issues and offer a broad range of features and modules to cover market requirements. However, some of the offered specialties might be unnecessary for our business case, we still have to pay for them.

Providers supply crucial overview for general purposes. Most of the offered white-labeled CPO platforms offer a dashboard for monitoring stations’ condition, notifications about malfunctions, statistics and insights into charging courses and tariff revenue, transaction reporting, insights into driver behavior and expenses. In their respective limitations, pre-built software vendors supply fine analytics-powered platforms for business accounts. This enables monitoring and optimizing EV charging infrastructure, e.g. identifying charging trends. Access to historical data enables informed decision-making. With some sort of customization, off-the-shelf products also offer to create brand recognition. For the aspiring player or with limited funds, implementing a turnkey solution may be a great starting point.

However, becoming a vendor-locked-in also may cause future turbulences in the matter of transition. This should be kept in mind. The aforementioned applies to charging providers willing to switch in the future to another software. When reaching the decision, to change the provider or switch to a tailored solution, may cause turbulences (unless integration is done through open standards, but even that's not always enough). Still, limiting opportunities will not be an obstacle in every situation.

The individual case to take into consideration is whether the vendor company stock performs well. It is worth checking out if the long-term business partnership is going to execute adequately. Long-term stability will depend on the number of customers and the level of satisfaction. In the dynamic market, staying up-to-date is one of the key factors of success. Being trapped on an obsolete version that no longer responds to market and business needs will quickly generate a loss. Make sure your partner sets the right focus and follows market demands and recent updates.

At this point, my recommendation is to take some time to define and evaluate your business goals. Finding answers to the nagging questions - how do we want to operate, what are our expectations and what do we want to achieve over the first year of existence and the next five years. Add the unknowns - predictions of how the market may evolve and what the expectations of partners and users are. This will help plan the resources and reveal potential areas of focus. Perhaps an additional niche will be discovered that is worth developing. The e-mobility market is 

 and now is a good time for a profound analysis. Some answers can be provided by open standards development organizations. Be familiar with OCPP, OICP, and OCPI standards. Follow the recent trends and updates to make sure you respond to market requirements accurately. This will help you scale fast. Besides, don’t forget about your defined personas, final recipients of your service. Whether it’s off-the-shelf or custom-made, it won't work if we don't 

 to user requirements. Letting ourselves off the hook will quickly put us out of business. If having difficulties recognizing your needs, don’t hesitate to leave a message. We’ll gladly help!


Psst! On the right drop your email address to get useful CPO platform requirements.

Pros and cons of ready-made and a custom Charge Point Operator platform. Click to learn more.

Checklist - Core CPO platform requirements

Anchor points on becoming Charge Point Operator. Click to learn more.

After founding Solidstudio, Pawel was an originator in terms of pursuing expertise in eMobility. With the build-up of a solid knowledge-base on industry’s needs & wants, he now keeps a close eye on products’ development. He’s also hugely responsible for the business’ side and designs the business models for our products.

Paweł Małkowiak

The e-mobility market is booming but still enigmatic in terms of processes between market participants or taken roles and available standards. In general, we can distinguish two sides of the charging ecosystem - being on the user-side eMobility Service Providers and Charge Point Operators providing devices and software to manage the infrastructure. In this piece, we address the part of the market responsible for deploying and managing charging points (also called charging stations).

Charge Point Operator or Charging Station Operator is responsible for providing, managing, and setting the charging infrastructure for the e-mobility industry. A CPO business operates a network of charging points - the hardware devices and future-oriented software. The value lies in connecting smart charging equipment with eMobility Service Providers. A CPO assures the network works seamlessly. This includes diagnostics, maintenance, price setting, and Point of interest (POI) data management.

On the operators' side is to provide available, steady, and 24/7 functioning EV chargers. Managing systems need to real-time report any malfunction that occurs with the device. And if possible, automatically fix it.

The matter of real-time also applies to software platforms. Necessary information delivery for adequate decision-making will help to shape operations, business, and technical statistics analysis. Even when the service does not assume the large scale, automation is the core in reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Automated processes should hassle-freely handle transactional and technical concerns without engaging employees.

Charging Stations require sufficient energy supply and distribution. Smart management during peak hours, involving renewables and storing battery power, reduces capital and operating costs. Identifying areas for cost optimization and investigating user’s expectations will help balance business processes. This market will continue to grow, for now, with a focus on segmentation, preferences, and habits, the hidden (greener) Holy Grail is possibly up to grasp.

How does the Charge Point Operator platform work?

First, we need to explain that an Operator’s role range may vary. In some cases, CPO owns the infrastructure, provides connectivity, and can supply only one side of the ecosystem. Some of the CPOs act like 

 . Since it’s a mutual interest, they offer other eMSPs access to the charging infrastructure.

To explain the charging ecosystem’s general flow, let’s place CPO as a separate service - hardware and software provider. In this scenario, CPO exposes access to the charging network and relies on eMSPs.

CPO exposes charging network with tailored API. In this scenario, each new linking with a partner follows the provided documentation and matches eMSPs API. This approach is time-consuming and limiting in terms of fast integration and scaling. Via custom API, we link two models and two teams working separately. The matter lies in the charging options provided, and the service eMSP wants to offer. The integration via custom API takes months. Assuming that each operator offers only integration via its API, connecting with each requires substantial resources and time.

However, there are two faster ways to connect and open the charging network.

 follow the general principle in the e-mobility world, providing an open and accessible network to EV drivers. Charge Point Operator can expose charging network to any eMSP in a standardized way, enabling faster integration and scaling. With Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI), managed by 

 , the linking between partners can be done within several days. Open Standards, besides, provide transparent information to consumers about charging locations and prices. Moreover, they are developed and updated by a strong community 

following technical innovations and market requirements

 . Also, as a part of the ultimate goal, Open Standards are free to use. By simplifying, standardizing, and harmonizing charging networks, standards are an integral part of rapid e-mobility growth.

With one contract owned Charging Stations become exposed to thousands of new users and eMobility Service Providers. Thanks to the Open Intercharge Protocol (OICP), integration with a hub like GIREVE or Hubject opens the broadest spectrum of possibilities. E-roaming networks are the desired state of EV charging cross-border arrangement.

Being integrated with a hub does not limit the other possibilities. Charge Point Operator’s platform can be exposed at the same time to the hub, and eMobility Service Provider via the most commonly applied (and supported) OCPI standard.

What are the Charge Point Operator platform’s features?

At the most basic level, every Charge Point Operator platform should provide via admin panel pricing, reporting and billing solution, remote charging stations management, and smart energy management.

The comprehensive backend system allows CPO to 

 for the charging session. Rates can be modeled and verified at the admin panel. The charging session’s price can be specified on the total charged kilowatt-hours, the duration, or a blend of other circumstances (additional parking fee, time & day of the week). The B2B contract between CPO and eMSP includes all tariffs and is invoiced at the end of the billing period. The price that is exposed to the final user (EV owner) depends on the individual eMSP price management system.

, CPOs should easily handle all station-related administration and control tasks. The admin panel should provide a view of the billing history, modify charging prices, remote management of chargers, and with advanced automation resolve common issues.

 allows to reduce the risks of the station and network overload, ensure EVs are charged securely and economically optimized. The highest charging switch can be limited from the admin panel. For example, developing a feature for dynamic load management (DLM) allows setting maximum capacity for several charging points and diffuses the load within the single one.

How can Charge Point Operators optimize their business?

Focus on operational advantage, staying up-to-date with the most recent protocols’ releases, smart energy administration, monitoring, and analyzing will provide excellent scalability and interoperability. The reliable charging infrastructure management system, easy to maintain and open for eMSPs boosts network scaling and ROI. In turn, an e-roaming platform exposes charge points in the fastest and most efficient way. Fortunately, one approach does not eliminate the possibility of benefiting from the other. However, responsibility for the maintenance of charging points remains on the CPO's side. Automation and the ability to make quick, ideally remote fixes, responsiveness will have a significant role in the prosperity of one's performance.

Direct and indirect recipients of CPO services depend on the availability of the entire operational infrastructure. This includes real-time hardware monitoring to identify and fix malfunctions before the beneficiary - or even the CPO - is aware of them. Automated maintenance reduces costs of in-field technical repairs.

It’s good to make sure the CPO platform offers smart energy management control. The entire energy flow across the EV charging system secures energy that is delivered at the right time to the right stock at the lowest cost.

The ability to scale is critical to keep up with the booming growth of the EV market. It’s not just about placing devices in an accessible locality but also about providing back-end infrastructure ready to connect with new partners and render the service.

For long-term operations, interoperability will be essential. On the CPO side lies the responsibility for delivering the 

 , allowing easy integration of any charger. Compatibility with protocols and standards like OCPP, OCPI, OICP secures smooth backend operations’ communications.

When considering investing in Charging Infrastructure, the above issues are worth verifying whether the available solutions on the market meet our expectations. Depending on the scale of the planned activity, our needs will differ.

How to efficiently manage interoperability?

Charge Point Operators are the foundation of the eMobility growth. Analyzing and improving EV charging operations leads to better decision-making. In consequence, it maximizes business profits and eliminates unnecessary costs ensuring the best EV charging experience. Regarding investments, this varies based on which market we plan to operate in. Both governmental plans and local units support the development of charging networks. Thus it is worth spending time and finding out what are the possibilities and criteria for obtaining subsidies. The shape of the budget may be subject to modification, and new approaches may arise.

With the advantage of having e-mobility experts, at Solidstudio we took on board the daring challenge of developing a CPO platform on our own. Knowing the industry's nuances, we made sure that the product we developed would suit a whole plethora of needs that various clients may search for. Thus, our CPO platform can be installed either in any client’s infrastructure or as supported by Solidstudio.

Our platform comes with various necessary functionalities that concur to an effortless charging stations management. The core features consist of:

There are more functionalities planned, they will be gradually announced.

 is fully customizable, ready to be designed as per client’s requests. Supplementary features (which are not within the license, such as the new standards implementation) can be available to purchase as an add-on or upgrade.

How to become Charge Point Operator and manage the CPO platform?

Open standards can be a game changer for both eMSP's and CPO's. Here is why.

The initial stages of technologies lead to various types of solutions addressing the same problem. Each company develops a different approach. At the beginning of the XXth century, when commercial electricity had come to the mainstream, multiple energy producers offered power supply with miscellaneous frequencies and voltages. As time passed, governments began to impose certain standards on suppliers. This standard-setting led to the joint effort to create the first power grid.

From the first power plant to the moment when all energy providers linked to the same network, decades passed. This was only possible because they took a mutual direction.

 - literally and figuratively. With global warming, exhaustion of solid fuel resources, and lifestyle changes, companies face the challenge of how to provide accessible new charging forms of green power.

Now, as the e-mobility era is here, we are on the same page, like we were at the very beginning of the XXth century. We already have plenty of providers: eMobility Service Providers (eMSP) and Charge Point Operators (CPO) - two substantial sides of the e-Mobility world. One of the main challenges ahead of this market is to deliver the best user experience, at possible minimum resources use. As usual, user experience is a matter of well-designed apps, customer support, and simplicity itself. But there is an additional fact. End-users need to be able to charge cars at any charging station without being concerned about accessibility. The issue is - having the contract signed with the Charge Point Operators recharging point service. How to achieve this? Partners must take the same course, and this is where the standards start to play a major role. There are two possibilities: Open Charge Point Interfaces or Open Intercharge Protocols. What are the benefits?

The main goal of the Open Charge Point Interface (OCPI) is to allow electric vehicle drivers to charge their cars at any station. OCPI defines a set of modules that cover most cases the driver may need. There are two technical modules that are used to establish connectivity between two platforms using OCPI: Credentials module and Versions module. Other modules are strongly related to real-life use cases. These would be:

Locations - module responsible for sharing information about the Charge Points, like address, geolocation, real-time data about the current status, electrical parameters.

Sessions & Commands - module allows the end-user to start the charging session and be informed about the current status of the charging session.

OCPI is an open standard, and what may be very important for the adopters - it’s very flexible. For instance, CPOs (Charge Point Operators) may implement only the Locations module (apart from two technical mandatory modules) when only sharing Point Of Interest data. With no necessary exposing the eRoaming functionality. But the ultimate goal for many CPOs is to allow end-users to charge their car. In that case, many more modules need to be implemented (Sessions, Commands, CDRs). Some others are optional, even for the eRoaming (Tokens, Tariffs), and that depends on the agreement between certain allies. It’s in terms of how financial flow and security is modeled.

The biggest advantage of having OCPI implemented is that it’s almost a one-time investment. The initial effort is significant, as it might be challenging to transfer internal models and processes to the OCPI. But once it’s done for a partner, it opens the company for quick and cost-effective integration with a lot of other associates.

A bit different concept is proposed by the Berlin-based innovative company - Hubject. Hubject developed its own API (OICP) covering almost the same cases as OCPI. There is one extra. Hubject also acts as a hub. It connects CPOs and eMSPs. Once a company is connected to the Hubject platform, it becomes open for integration with any other comrade being already assigned. That’s a huge advantage because the integration is done once, with one platform, and of course it becomes profitable when it comes to an alliance with multiple partners.

Yet another advantage of the Open Intercharge Protocol is that it’s quite easy to implement. Like with most protocols, the main challenge is to synchronize our internal models with the standard one. What is comforting with OICP - there is not too much to implement. It depends on the level of integration we want to achieve, but it’s enough to implement about 5 HTTP calls to expose eRoaming through the Hubject platform.

Having in mind multiple historical examples, it may be difficult to be a part of a developed market without following widely adopted standards. Initially, it may need some additional effort. But when the standard is implemented, our platform becomes open for the whole market 

. Without it, we would need to spend weeks or months doing the integration with each partner separately.

OICP and OCPI protocols - open standards for CPOs and eMSPs

Open Charge Point Protocol migration from 1.6 to 2.0.1

Keeping IT systems up-to-date, even with basic tasks like dependencies or newly coming company-wide best practices is challenging. Even if all components are maintained in-house, it’s time-consuming to keep all areas updated. This applies also to keeping up-to-date external protocols our system uses. Whether we are integrated with Stripe over HTTP API, or with thousands of charging stations over OCPP, it’s good to know what the latest API version introduces. All this in order to examine if there are new opportunities upfront our business that can be supported by the newest version of the protocol we use. Or maybe our market requires covering long-waited, flow enabling updates. Let’s dive deeper into the new features introduced in OCPP 2.0.1 to see if it’s worth spending time upgrading your CPO platform.

OCPP 2.0.1 introduced business-oriented features but also technical improvements like device management or security. Those aspects are likewise very important, but this article gathers the latest OCPP updates focusing on the business angle.

More sophisticated support for smart charging is OCA’s (Open Charge Alliance) answer for a growing interest in this area. Energy cost fluctuates during the day. Also, the amount of energy available on different levels (charging station, building/parking, grid) changes according to the current consumption, production, and network capabilities.

Having that fact in mind we can use it to plan the charging process, buy cheaper energy for the end-user, and not overload the network. We need to know when energy is cheaper or the network load is too high. It’s out of the scope of OCPP, but once we have such information, we should inform the charging station how to apply it to finally reduce the cost of charging and limit network load.

OCPP 1.6 already supports smart charging. What is new, OCPP 2.0.1 is being open for new types of input having an impact on the charging process. Let’s start from a quick overview of OCPP 1.6’s support for smart charging and then move to things that are new in version 2.0.1.

Whole smart charging is based on charging profiles. A single profile describes time intervals with power/current limits, for instance, a profile can define that between 0:00 and 10:00 we can charge using 5kW, and between 10:00 and 0:00 maximum energy is limited to 2kW.

Profiles can be stacked and merged in order to build complex profiles. There are three types of charging profiles:

ChargePointMaxProfile - profile of whole charge point

TxDefaultProfile - default profile for a transaction (can be for whole charge point or for specific connector)

TxProfile - profile for a single transaction, deleted once a transaction is finished.

The second essential concept is a type of smart charging. There are three types of smart charging setup supported in version 1.6:

From a technical perspective, everything is covered by three OCPP API operations:

As it was mentioned earlier, 2.0.1 is open to new sources of information driving smart charging. Since now we can consume information from:

electric vehicles connected to charge point (through the ISO 15118)

Imagine a situation where there are some external indicators saying the energy our charge points transfer to EVs has to be limited. We can handle that on the CPO side, consuming the information and preparing an adequate charging profile being sent to the charging station over OCPP. But the 2.0.1 version supports direct integration between charge points and EMS. An extreme example of such integration can be a hospital with a lot of critical health-related systems consuming energy and with parking having charge points. It’s obvious that charging cars is less important than keeping the core hospital’s infrastructure running. This is an example in case of a bigger load, the energy management system should limit energy flowing to the charging stations. It can be done directly between the EMS and charging stations outside the OCPP. But such an approach introduces a problem. The CPO platform can be lost because the charging station behaves not the way it was requested by the system. OCPP 2.0.1 solves this problem by introducing a notification mechanism that informs CSMS (Charging Station Management System) about some external limitations. There are many cases that can be solved by support for direct smart charging inputs from an energy management system:

integration with Building Energy Management System

integration with Home Energy Management System

From a technical perspective, a new charging profile type (ChargingStationExternal) has been introduced. External signals changing the charging profiles should be stored as a charging profile of this type. Once an external charging profile has been added, the charging station has to notify CSMS and it does it using the new message - NotifyChargingLimitRequest.

The issue of support for ISO 15118 will be covered in the next paragraph, now let’s focus on the parts of ISO 15118 related to smart charging. Smart charging is nothing more than gathering information about the state of the network (including prices, load, etc.), processing the data, and steering the charging process. Standard ISO 15118 introduces another one source of information that can be processed in order to plan charging processes effectively. The source of information is an EV. One of the most important pieces of information when planning a charging process is the amount of energy the car wants to consume. There are many options to provide such information to the CSMS:

user can enter requested energy using a mobile app (delivered by the eMSP) and through the backend-to-backend integration send it to the CPO’s CSMS,

the charging station may send this data directly to the CSMS using a custom API

We could even use a new measurand introduced in OCPP 1.6 called SoC (State of charge of charging the vehicle in percentage). All those approaches have significant drawbacks. They assume the user's manual action, using a custom API or doing some approximations (when translating percent of battery already charged to the energy to be consumed without knowing the capacity of the battery). None of those solutions is good enough to become a standard. But ISO 15118 together with OCPP 2.0.1 covers this part of smart charging. ISO 15118 as a standard describing communication between an electric vehicle and a charging station specifies what type of information can be exchanged between those two parties. EV sends:

energy request (target, minimum and maximum)

charging parameters (current, power, and voltage)

discharging parameters (current and power)

Once the data is sent to the EVSE, it can be translated to the OCPP message and sent to CSMS which can use this input to prepare the charging schedule and send it back to the charging station (taking into account other inputs like price info, network load from DSO, etc.).

OCPP 2.0.1 introduces the message NotifyEVChargingNeedsRequest to share ISO 15118 based information with CSMS. It has four parameters describing charging details sent by EV:

Once CSMS prepares a charging profile for the current transaction, it sends it using SetChargingProfileRequest OCPP message. EVSE is proxying the information to the EV and as a last step, EVSE can notify CSMS about the charging schedule calculated by the EV using the NotifyEVChargingScheduleRequest OCPP message.

What is also worth mentioning OCPP 2.0.1 introduced ISO 15118 based renegotiation of the charging schedule. Renegotiation can be triggered by both sides - EV and CSMS. It’s useful in order to quickly react to the latest changes in the grid, no matter if it’s to reduce costs or unstress the network.

Very often the eMobility world is compared to the petrol industry. One of the most frequently compared areas is the transfer of energy from the station to the car. It’s said that we still have to wait years to bring the same user experience for the eMobility users as gasoline-based car users have today because of the time needed to charge the car. There is one improvement that has never been available for classic cars, but some charging stations and electric cars already have it. It’s Plug & Charge. In short, it’s a technology that allows users to start charging sessions without manual authorization. A user just needs to plug in the cable and without scanning the RFID token or using a mobile application car starts to drain energy from the station. Once charging is done, users can be automatically billed, also without entering payment details anywhere. Everything thanks to the PKI based solution introduced in the ISO 15118 and also covered by the OCPP 2.0.1.

Plug & Charge is built on a trust that is guaranteed by the Public Key Infrastructure. The most interesting part of it is how it replaces the need for human intervention when doing the authorization. The EV has the contract certificate stored (X.509 certificate). The certificate associates the end-user with the public key. Because the certificate is issued by a trusted Certificate Authority, the charging station is able to check it, and if it’s valid, the charging station believes that the user presented in the certificate is not fake. User is identified by the ID called E-Mobility Account Identifier (eMAID) stored in the contract certificate. eMAID is also known to the eMSP for billing purposes. Thanks to that, eMSP knows which user has to be charged for the transaction started automatically just by plugging the cable.

Two main parts of OCPP cooperating with ISO 15118 in order to provide Plug & Charge are:

Whole ISO 15118 is built upon Public Key Infrastructure. That’s why the separate component managing certificates has been introduced in order to open OCPP for integration with EVSE supporting ISO 15118. There is a set of OCPP messages including:

that are designed to manage certificates related to ISO 15118.

The second part of OCPP allowing to implement Plug & Charge is Authorization flow. AuthorizeRequest message contains (among other fields) information about the token used for authorization. This is a message used to send RFID token or a Central token in a remote transaction. There are multiple types of tokens supported in OCPP version 2.0.1 (more about it in the next paragraph), but one of them is called eMAID. eMAID is sent together with the data allowing to verify contract certificate (certificate and iso15118CertificateHashData).

OCPP 1.6 and previous versions were designed to support RFID-based authorization. Version 2.0.1 introduced a set of new authorization mechanisms, among them:

Central - used in for example in remote transactions

KeyCode - for authorization using PIN-code

It opens new possibilities for the development of user-friendly interfaces that may make charging easier and more accessible for the end-users.

OCPP 2.0.1 introduces significant changes that bring new opportunities for the whole eMobility world. In order to develop an efficient smart charging system or introduce Plug & Charge, we have to involve many parties, to mention only well-known ones like CPOs, eMSPs, and OEMs. The connection between the charging station and the backend system (CSMS) is a piece of a puzzle - linked with an upgrade of OCPP to the latest version. The decision has to be made wisely because it has many consequences, however, the features OCPP 2.0.1 provides can give CPO business a notable boost.

OCPP 2.0.1 introduced business-oriented features but also technical improvements.

Custom Charge Point Operator platform - pros and cons

09 MARCH 2021 • 10 MIN READ