Use case of integration with Hubject using remote authentication

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

For the last months, I was working for our EV partner willing to integrate his CPO platform with Hubject. The partner’s charge point does not support RFID token, so the easiest way to start a charging session is to use remote authorization. Wanting to share my experience, I’d like to describe how to integrate with Hubject using remote authorization.

Let’s start with something not related to Hubject itself. What makes the easiest charge point operator API allowing to start a charging session with remote authorization? I would say three factors have to happen:

expose information about our charge point to let end-user to find them

expose the possibility to start and stop charging

send the details of the charging session.

What I really like in Hubject’s API is that those high-level features are mapped one to one to their API operations. For this eMobility solution, five operations have to be implemented in order to introduce eRoaming through Hubject’s platform into our system. Unlike in the OCPI case, there is no complicated handshake. Nothing is related to security on the API level. It’s done by SSL Client Authentication, so there is no need to obtain tokens, etc. In fact, there are no “technical” endpoints that have to be implemented, only those related to the business processes. Let’s start by exposing our charge points to the end-users.

In order to let end-users find our charge points on Hubject’s map (or to find them on the maps of any EMP integrated with Hubject), we have to share both static and dynamic data of our charging network. Open Intercharge Protocol (OICP) has two operations supporting this process:

Those two operations should be invoked in two contexts: real-time and batch updates. Any time something is changing to the static or dynamic data of our charging network, it should be synchronized with Hubject’s B2B Service Platform (HBS platform) in real-time. Apart from that, CPO should send periodic updates (daily) of all existing charge points, including static and dynamic data.

Delete may be a problematic operation. It’s because in most cases, we don’t want to delete a charge point completely. We may need to store information about currently not used charge points for some reports, historical statistics, or investigations. That’s why we may not have an operation ‘delete’ explicitly modeled, it may be done by setting the charge point state to “out of order”, or setting something like ”valid to” date for the charge point. But each CPO has some logic based on which we can tell if the charge point should be visible on the maps or not. This is where the OICP batch update comes up. Instead of deleting the charge point that is out of order, we can run full load and the invisible charge point will be removed from Hubject’s system. We need to have in mind that we introduce some level of eventual consistency with such a solution. Of course, the straightforward delete operation is also supported, so if your system has the ‘delete’ operation modeled, it can be easily applied.

Once we share our charge points with end-users, we should give them the possibility to start and stop charging sessions. There are two operations responsible for that in the OICP:

Let’s think of what kind of data would be good to receive when starting a charging session.

information about the charge point user wants to use

information about the EMP (it’s eRoaming and many EMP can use our platform, so it would be good to distinguish charging session from different EMP at least for some reporting)

identifier of the charging session (in order to know which session has to be stopped when our backend receives eRoamingAuthorizeRemoteStop)

That’s exactly what is sent by HBS to the CPO backend when starting a charging session. It’s worth describing a bit deeper one parameter which is the end-user identification. For the remote start, it’s called EvcoId and it's the identifier of the contract between the EMP and the end-user charging the car. We have to store this value in our system because it has to be sent to HBS together with a completed charging data record. The same has to happen with the session id, but as a more common concept, there is a chance that our backend already has an idea of the session with some identifier and it’s also assigned to the charging data record. If not, then we have to enrich our CDR before sending them to HBS by two values:

That leads us to the last API call we have to implement.

This functionality is done by a single API call:

Most of the fields that have to be sent to Hubject are probably stored in a CPO platform. There are charging start and end, meter value start and end, and more. Apart from that, there are two parameters, already mentioned in the previous paragraph (SessionId and EvcoId) that our CDR has to be enriched with.

According to Hubject’s website, they already have more than 700 partners integrated. This confirms that they know how to well prepare the integration process. Their documentation is relatively easy to follow, and monitoring tools make the whole compatibility procedure smooth. But if you need a helping hand to seamlessly open your CPO platform for eRoaming through Hubject, do not hesitate to reach me out via 

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Ebook - The Growing concept of e-Mobility

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

Replay and transcript of eMobility Open Standards webinar.

Krzysztof is our Head of Products and he leads the technical development behind the suite of our ready-made solutions. Throughout the years in Solidstudio, he gained an invaluable insight into the eMobilty industry’s requirements and is now more than qualified to share his knowledge with others.

Krzysztof Ciombor

On October 14th Piotr Majcher and Krzysztof Ciombor led a webinar in which they discussed open standards applied in emobility. Below you can find a video recording of the presented use case, and a transcript for those of you who prefer the written form.

Unlocking eMobility platform using Open Standards - video:

Unlocking eMobility platform using open standards - transcript:

 Hello and welcome to our meeting about the emobility. We'd like to talk today about unlocking the eMobility platform using open standards. OK. Two important things worth sharing before we start. The first one is, as you can see in the topic, we'd like to talk today about 

, but not only. We'd like to also mention different approaches to unlock mobility platform, which are, for instance, OICP by Hubject. And other different protocols allowing to do the same, but in a different way. And the second important thing, we would like to show you, is that we are going to talk about the use case. It's not going to be a theoretical presentation. We would like to show you a step by step description of how we unlock mobility platform using open standards. Let me just quickly go through the agenda. We'll start from the short introduction and just off ahead, we'll go through the description of how we open eMobility platform using the open standards. We'll start from the initial state of the project. That was the point when we decided to introduce open standards to the platform. Then we'll go a bit deeper into technical details. We will describe the transition process and at the end of that part, we will tell you a bit about the challenges and risks. The last part of the presentation is about the results. So, actually what we achieved by opening the platform using open standards. I'm Piotr Majcher and I am a CTO and co-founder of Solidstudio. Three years ago, I and my partner decided to stop working as consultants and we started a software house.

 Now, apart from being IT experts, we are also focused on the EV market, especially in the field of the integration between different components and different partners in that market. Here with me is Krzysztof Ciombor. Krzysztof, can you say a few words about you?

 Yes. Hello, everyone. I am Krzysztof. I've been working with Solidstudio for almost two years now. I am the lead developer in eMobility project. I was primarily a backend developer specializing in JVM technologies and I particularly love the Kotlin programming language

 Thanks Krzysztof. Just let me add a few more things about us. So, why do we share these insights? We have been cooperating with one of the European EV leaders for two years and we have experience in developing both sides of this market. So we were responsible for delivering features normally recognized as something delivered by eMobility service provider. But we are also responsible for the development of the charge point operating platform, and we were involved in the integration between the partners using both approaches. So we were using open standards like OCPI standards and OICP, but we are also using custom APIs.

I'd like to show you a few numbers about the EV market now and in the future. I'd like to focus only on the first number. As you can see here, in 2018 in the UK, almost two percent of all cars sold were electric. I've seen quite hot Twitter news a few days ago that in Norway last month, more than half of the cars sold were electric. I think it proves that the movement of introducing electricity into transport is 

. And there's no question ‘if we should do that’, but ‘how should we do that effectively?’. Before we go to the technical description of our journey from closed to open platform...

 ...let’s talk a bit about the benefits of open standards. I'd like to start with the question. So the first benefit is business model optimization. The question I'd like to ask you is ‘what limits you and your company when making a decision about the integration with partners?’ We have a technical background, but we are working with sales and other business teams.

So how does it work? Normally, the ideas about integration with the partner are brought by the sales reps to the company. They have ideas, because they see some potential benefits from integrating with network parties. But before making the decision about integration, they have to know the time needed to deliver that. They have to somehow involve the delivery team, and in general, integrations with other partners are time-consuming tasks, because we have to remember about two things. If we are integrating with another company using a custom API, we are synchronizing two things. We are synchronizing models and we are synchronizing work of two teams working in a separate organization.

When it comes to the model, we know that the same things can be molded in a different way. For instance, one CPO (Charging Point Operator) may use only sockets and that's enough for their business. But another company may use a much more sophisticated model of charging infrastructure. They may use location, charge points, maybe electric vehicle supply equipment, connectors. And when we are doing the connection between those two different boards, we need to establish some common language. So we have to synchronize our models to be able to talk to each other. And the second point is synchronizing two teams and it's always challenging, even inside one company. My experience says that integrating using custom APIs is a matter of months, not weeks or days. The business knows the answer and that is let's assume three months. That starts during the calculation because they need to compare possible benefits coming from the integration of the partner with the cost of the delivery of such integration. And we just realized that in some cases, business decisions are driven by the cost of technical, by the cost of the delivery of the integration. That's, of course, not good.

Now, imagine a different scenario. Imagine that business doesn't have to ask tech teams about the estimation because they already know that integration with the partners normally takes four days. And for instance, there are some cases when no code has to be changed because everything is done on the platform. Such flexibility to our business can be brought by introducing open standards. The second point, our OCPs are also very important. And the point is our users. We believe that no matter what we are doing, so if you are the CPO, ESP (eMobility Service Provider), or as we are Solidstudio, a software house, users are the central point of our business. It's because scaling in most cases means that more and more users can benefit from our services.

So I’d like to start again from the question, what can make our users' life easier? According to the surveys, users are still worried about not having enough access to efficient charging stations. This is recognized as one of the most serious barriers to purchase EVs. Imagine that the user of the platform, which is not integrated with many partners, is somehow locked to the infrastructure provided. We can compare that to the situation of traditional cars. In order to buy gasoline, you are forced to look for the petrol station of the partner that you have a contract signed with. That's, of course, not a user-friendly approach. But by introducing open standards and by integrating more and more partners, with a quick integration, we can change that. And we can open as a CPO, our charge points to be used by any user on the market. And on the other hand, from the ESP perspective, we can allow our user to charge at any charge point. That brings us to that next point, which is, I believe, a long term goal for the whole market, so it's building a real European charge point network.

I think that the current state of the charge point network in the world can be compared to what we saw in the early years of electricity. There were a lot of small power plants and they produced energy without any kind of standards. Now we have one single grid in Europe and the end-user is not even aware of all those technical details under the hood. Any device can be plugged in and in any place in Europe and it just works. On the other hand, multiple power plants are also connected to the same grid. We can build the same type of experience by introducing more and more operators and mobility service providers into the same network.

I think that we can conclude the introduction now. And now we'd like to dip a bit deeper into the transitional process.

Initial state of the project - scattered, custom-made API

 Thank you very much, Piotr. OK, now we'll talk a little bit more about the technical details, starting with the initial state of the project, which we had a couple of years ago. And it was actually the point where we started to wonder if we can do better. We had many custom-made APIs exposed specifically to the partners that we were integrating with. And it quickly became apparent that this solution is not going to work for the future and it's not going to be maintainable. So let's start with the initial state of the project. As I said, we had multiple custom-made APIs. Those APIs were very limited in the scope of the data that we were exposing. Those APIs were only capable of exposing basic static data out to charge points, which means including the location data, for example.

But it definitely did not support full e-raming flow. And moreover, there were no real-time updates. So whenever a partner wanted to have the current state of the charge points, for example, they had to do it in a polling fashion, which is, of course, not very efficient. Also, we had multiple different APIs exposed to our partners. And as I said, this solution was not very scalable.

Main challenge with this approach was that we had to implement monitoring in multiple places in order to make sure that our APIs work correctly. We also wanted to have those APIs secured. But since we had contractual obligations different in the set up with every partner, we had to have multiple different security mechanisms in place, and we had to test every one of them independently to make sure it worked correctly

Finally, as I already mentioned, the maintainability was not so high, because any change done to our system would then need to be propagated and updated in every single one of those APIs. So, as you can imagine, this leads to an exponential explosion of the cases that we need to cover.

We need to make sure that we test them and we are exposing the correct things in production. And the biggest issue with that approach was also something that we already mentioned from a business perspective. Since we did not have the opportunity to create new integrations in short time This leads to scaling problems because we are only limited to a single user group, which are actually the users that have contracts signed directly with us. As, for example, CPO, use our touchpoints. And we can not extend this to a larger group of people that will be able to use our charge points.

So let's briefly talk about the transformation process and how we applied those changes from a technical perspective.

The transformation process itself is relatively simple. We first decided on the open standards that we want to use and then implemented the simple use case to confirm that the standard is really suited for our needs and we can actually implement it correctly. Then we added successive modules to enrich the API and exposed new functionalities. And finally, we achieved this huge milestone, which is the full e-roaming functionality.

This allows us to open our charged points to more external users and more external integrations. And this is like the full e-roaming functionality is beneficial for both the MSP (Mobility Service Providers) because the MSPs want to attract more users by having more access to more charging networks. This approach is also very attractive for CPOs because we want to increase the utilization of our charge points, and if we are exposing them to a much larger user base, and this means that the utilization will eventually grow, and our charge points will be used more and more. And finally, we can apply the testing and monitoring staff directly to these open standards and have centralized in one place.

As you probably are aware and you have probably seen this picture many times before, there are basically four open standards available on the current market. Of course, for the purpose of this presentation, we are focused mostly on the CPO and MSP connection, which may or may not include the clearinghouse in between. In this area, we have basically four open protocols which are widely used across Europe. This includes the OICP protocol, the Open Intercharge Protocol, which is a proprietary protocol, developed by Hubject, we have the OCPI, which is actually a peer to peer protocol, but it also can be used in a peer to hub fashion and this is currently maintained by the EV Roaming Foundation (previously, it was maintained by a Dutch company). We have the eMIP, the eMobility Interoperation Protocol, which is a kind of proprietary protocol developed by a GIREVE platform. They are a French market player and it also is a hub connection to their platform. And finally, we have the OCHP protocol. Again, to a clearing house and is maintained by the e-Clearing Net Foundation.

So even though those protocols are very similar to the functionalities they expose, like every single one of them allows you to do, the basic authorization exposes the charge information, has a possibility to get information about the session and CDR, and finally, support for e-roaming info. We still need to decide which bridge protocol suits our use cases the best. Having selected the protocol, we can continue with the step by step implementation.

It's important to realize that most of those protocols and in particular OCPI protocol allows us to do the integration step by step. What I mean by that is that OCPI protocol exposes so-called modules which can be implemented basically independently, and that allows us to start with a very simple use case. Then out successive modules along the way for the simple use case, we selected POI data sharing. This, even though it comes with the initial spike in the development effort, because we need to, for example, implement the credentials module in order to perform the full handshake flow.

After completing that once for the first partner, we can basically reuse the implementation for any successive integration with any new partner. And POI data is only about a single module, which in OCPIs the locations module. And in our OICP for Hubject, we can use EVSE data exchange in order to achieve basically the same result. So even though this process is simple, we can already see after completing that, we can already see the benefits, because we can expose to POI data, which can then be used, for example, for display purposes on external partner modules.

Having done that, as I said, we can continue with our successive model implementation along with the new requirements that come from new integrated partners and for this purpose. We can then start, for example, sharing the CDR if a partner is interested in that and finally complete the e-roaming milestone, which for OCPI I would include command sessions and CDR module and remote start-stop session for Hubject OICP protocol. By doing that, we can already start switching existing partners and deprecating the legacy integrations in favor of using open standards. This allows us to successfully remove those custom made APIs and centralize everything within this one open protocol. But that's not the end. We can push it even further and include additional modules like, for example, tariffs, token and charging profiles to improve this platform even more and expose more functionalities to our users.

OK, let's talk about the challenges or risk factors that we encountered along the way and explain what are the main problems and what you should be aware of? OK, so first of all, this is a brief overview of the challenges we encountered. The situation may be different for your company, but in general, we believe that those are accurate representations of everything that everyone is trying to use open platform struggles with. This includes actually a standard selection, many internal processes and data models to the open standards, applying some modifications and extensions to the standard, migrating to a newer version. And finally, the necessity of supporting multiple open standards and open standard versions.

First of all, accurate standards, selection, as we described. There are multiple standards available on the market. So it's important to realize which standard you should implement. This is, of course, dictated by two factors. If we want to achieve wide market coverage, we should probably support the standards which are used by most of the players on the market. But it quickly turned out that this is actually difficult to find out. And it may come only from experience or by, for example, being a member of this larger EV market or EV platform. For example, the EV Roaming Foundation, if you are a member, they may have some data about that. This is particularly important for OCPI where the latest version is 2.2, the 3.0 is in progress, but actually, the most used one is still the 2.1.1 Version.

Selecting the appropriate variant is also important,if you want to apply additional features that are needed for your company, like, for example, supporting the charging profiles and thus enabling the smart charging because this is available only in OCPI 2.2 and it's actually not supported in previous versions. So depending on the use cases in your company, you may want to implement a different standard.

When it comes to matching internal processes and data models to the standard, it comes in two ways.

So first of all, as we already mentioned, you for your purposes internally may model the data differently and the OCPI or OICP or any other open standard requires you to do so. That may need additional transformation/mapping layers in between your internal data models and the open protocol itself. So even though this representation you may already have in your system, in order to fulfill the open standards requirements, you will probably need to remap them to comply with the schema, when it comes to the process adjustments. This is particularly important for the CPI protocol, where this protocol is bi-directional. That means that it supports both a push and pull source. This is not usually the case for developing rest APIs.

For example, where it is mainly about getting the data and there is no active push. However, by doing the bi-directional communication, we achieve real-time updates where we can immediately push, for example, the EVs status change to our partners. And thus they can, for example, show it to the user if a charge point is available or not. I also want to mention the data quality, and this is a part of the processes adjustments since we want to ensure the best experience for both our integrations and our partners, but also for our users.

We want to make sure that the data we're exposing is actually of high quality, which includes, for example, checking the location data, if it's accurate, checking the street name, if correct, et cetera. So some partners are already doing that on their side. For instance, Gireve has their own team, which handles data quality. But for some integration, it is up to you to make sure that the data you're exposing is of high quality.

When it comes to standard modifications and extensions, this is again driven by both sides. It can be driven by us or it can be driven by our partner. What we mean by driven by us is that sometimes we actually want to expose more data than the standard provides. Imagine a case where you as a CPO have a platform for gathering telemetry data from a charge point, and you want to share it with telemetry data with your partner. But there is no property for doing that inside the open standards. If there is an agreement between you and your partner, you can proceed with extending the protocol and thus exposing more data for this particular integration. This is very useful in some cases, but the modification itself can be also driven by our partner, which is a very prominent case in OCPI 2.1.1 where there is actually a slight gap in the standard itself. Basically, there is no property to properly connect CDR to a session. So some partners are forcing you to adjust the standard and again. For Gireve for example, they introduced their own property called authorization idea, which they're using for these purposes. But it means that you will need to adopt the standard on your side and comply with those requirements if you want to integrate with Gireve when it comes to new standard migration.

So, as we already mentioned, the OCPI 2.1.1. version is the most widely used and adopted version on the market. Both version 2.2 Introduces some major changes, which, for example, enabled the smart charging, so you may be tempted to do the upgrade to the latest version. But this also needs to be coordinated properly with the partner you want to integrate with. And it's not always so simple.

Finally, we want to mention that there will be at least for the next couple of years it will be necessary to support several open standards for two reasons. The first reason is that those standards are constantly evolving and they serve different purposes. So if you want to integrate, for example, with Hubject you are basically forced to use OICP protocol. But the other reason would be to enable more peer to peer integrations. You would want to go with OCPI, but the reality for the next couple of years is probably that we either end up with this status quo where we need to have our support for multiple standards.

There are a couple of predictions that it may happen that there will be some kind of unification of the standards, and that will be one open standard. It's up to discussion whether or not this is a probable scenario. But if not, and if the open standards are there on the market, we may need to support them for the future.

So to conclude this section, we want to compare this current status with the status that we had before. So all of the issues we had previously are now solved. For monitoring, we have a single centralized place where we can monitor our APIs and make sure that we are not doing anything wrong. For security, it's not only about a single entry point but also about the unified mechanism where previously every single API of ours could be secured using a different mechanism like basic authorization. Some API can use authorization talk and now they're all forced to use the authorization mechanism provided by the standard. And finally, maintainability. And it should be pretty obvious any change applied directly in our system, can be updated only in one place and propagated to all our partners. It also includes easier testing because we can use some open-source testing tools. We can use interoperability tools to confirm that our APIs are working. Finally, there are also some events called plugfests where everybody gathers and tests their integrations all together to make sure that everything works. If everyone is speaking the same language, which is in our case the open protocol, they can communicate seamlessly and confirm that their APIs are working correctly.

 Thank you Krzysztof for taking us on a journey of opening the platform, using open protocols. I'm sure that this type of information would be very useful before someone decides to introduce open protocols onto their platform.

This is actually the last thing we'd like to share with you, and these are the results of what we did. And we needed four months in order to introduce OCPI into the charge point operation platform. And after that, we were asked by the business ‘How long does it take to integrate the next partner?’ and we estimated the effort to several days. It was about four days. It means that we reduce effort to integrate a partner by 95 percent.

I think that does answer the question that I asked you when we started, how to make our business not limited by the technology. Thank you. That's the end of our presentation and we still have the space for the questions. So if you have any questions, please, use the chart on the right side, and we will do our best to answer.

OK, so you see the first question from Chris. Could you briefly describe some main differences between, OICP and OCPI. How about the cost effectiveness of OCPI? Is it worth a shot? I think this is a question for Krzysztof

 Sure, I can try to explain. So the main difference between OICP and OCPI would be the connection type because OICP's strictly pure to hub connection and Hubject in this example. Where the OCPI is an open protocol which allows both peer to peer and peer to hub connection. Now, in terms of the properties that are exchanged through those protocols, the OCPI is actually more flexible and includes more data. This is especially important, for example, for the German market, where we need to have the signed meter values included in the standard for Eichrech conformity, which is a German specific case, but it's still needed for the open protocols when it comes to the cost effectiveness.

This is rather a question of what is your use case and how you want to integrate with the partner. If you can do a peer to peer connection and this suits you best, it's probably good to try the OCPI. But if you want to integrate the subject, there's no other way. And to use the OICP.

 Thank you Krzysztof. And I hope that answered the question. Here we have another question from Michael. Do you operate on your own network or do you support other networks in those integrations? Solidstudio is a software house and we are supporting our partners, who are looking for technical support. So we have an 

 so we know how to do that, but we don't have ours as a Solidstudio, we don't have our own network. Please let me know if that answers your question.

And we can go to another one from Adam. Question: What is the adoption of OCPI among EV charger manufacturers or suppliers? As Krzysztof mentioned, in order to know such details, we would have to be the member of some bigger organization, some organization that connects similar companies. We know that those four open standards that were presented are widely used, and we have an experience that since we introduced that OCPI into the company, we already have a few other partners that are willing to use that. We also have one partner that used our custom API and now is willing to switch. So I only can say that the adoption is quite, quite big, but I can't give you an exact number.

OK. And the next question: in your opinion, what are the missing features you would like to see in the future of OCPI versions?

 So first of all, I think the standard is relatively good for the cases that we are apparently trying to do, considering the whole EV market. But for the future, they would definitely need to be supported for the upcoming things like the new ISO 15118 standard, which is about the plug and charge functionality, which basically means that you can skip the whole authorization process because the car itself will be authorized within the charge point. So I would like to see OCPI supporting that, maybe not for the features of the OCPI, but I would really like to have a well-defined testing suit and maybe some testing plasma for OCPI because from our perspective, especially, the handshake flow is pretty tweaking OCPI and a lot of people make a lot of mistakes there. It would be nice to have it improved for future integration.

 Thank you Krzysztof. That was the last question we have for now. Let's wait five minutes more. And we have another question, from the US? Some are saying there are problems with PKI governance. Can you please discuss the role of PKI in OCPI?

So by PKI, I mean Private Key Infrastructure. So it's not included, at least in the version 2.1.1 OCPI defines the shape of the data that are replaced by their partners. So it's rather the definition of the in short, JSON's that they're sent from one partner to another and also defines something else. OK, so the concern is with the PKI in OCPP. Well, OCPI, but you know, OCPP. So OCPP is a bit above what is the scope of our webinar. So we are talking about the integration. OK. Sorry for interrupting, but I'm getting more and more information from Michael. So the first question was for the PKI in the context of OCPI, but it's in the OCPP. So is there a similar concept OCPP. OK.

 I would try to clarify that. I already mentioned that while telling you about differences between OCPI and OICP in version 2.2, we do have support for signed meter values which can be used to exchange those authorization data, and also assigned data through the OCPI protocol. As I mentioned, this is required for German conformity. But is still up to our partners to decide on the standard of the encryption and the key exchange, but it's technically supported in OCPI 2.2 but as far as I know, there are plans to improve these OCPI 3.0. I hope that answers your question.

 Thank you, Krzysztof for the support. OK. So if there are no questions. Please feel free to reach us out using our emails. If you have any questions regarding our presentation or in general if you'd like. If you are looking for support in those topics that we presented, do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you very much again for your time for being with us here. And see you next time, hopefully in the next webinar by Solidstudio.

Replay and transcript of eMobility Open Standards webinar. Click to learn more.

Unlocking eMobility platform using Open Standards - #OCPI use case

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.

eRoaming remote authorization with Hubject

05 NOVEMBER 2020 • 5 MIN READ