As Electric Vehicles (EVs) gain traction globally, the future of mobility is shifting toward greener alternatives. According to a March 2024 report by Forbes, global EV sales surged from 3 million in 2021 to 14 million in 2023. Analysts at S&P Global Mobility predict that by 2030, EVs could account for 40% of all U.S. car sales. Despite the rapid growth of EVs, one significant barrier to broader adoption remains: range anxiety.
This whitepaper aims at Charge Point Operators (CPOs), e-Mobility Service Providers (eMSPs), and infrastructure providers looking to expand their charging network's reach and improve customer experience in the rapidly growing electric vehicle market.
Executive Summary
While EV sales are on the rise, fully electric vehicles still make up less than 8% of all U.S. car sales, as reported by Forbes on March 7, 2024. The main reason behind this slow adoption is "range anxiety”, the fear that an EV's battery may not have enough capacity to complete a journey or may not find suitable charging stations. To address this concern, EV roaming has emerged as a solution. Similar to mobile phone roaming, EV roaming allows drivers to access charging stations across multiple networks, significantly enhancing convenience and reducing range anxiety.
Problem Statement
Although forecasts indicate the increasing popularity of EVs, their adoption in the U.S. remains limited. A primary reason for this is range anxiety, a critical barrier to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
EV Roaming as a Solution
EV roaming addresses the challenge of range anxiety by allowing EV owners to charge their vehicles seamlessly on the go, using any Charging Point Operator (CPO), Charging Station Operator (CSO), or e-mobility service provider's network, regardless of regional or national borders. This concept is similar to mobile phone roaming, where a customer can connect to any mobile network worldwide if they have a roaming plan with their home service provider.
With EV roaming services, drivers can use a single account to access charging stations across multiple networks and countries, making it easier to find available chargers and continue their journeys without worrying about running out of power. This service is crucial for the widespread adoption of EVs, as it ensures convenient charging, enhancing overall confidence in electric vehicle usage.
Challenges to Implement EV Roaming
Understanding the Basics: Interoperability is key
Roaming and interoperability are common telecom solutions for most people due to mobile phone technology. Users can use their existing SIM card across countries and cities, using the same account as the local telecom network provider. This is possible because international roaming agreements are established between global mobile network operators to allow such services across the network.
Users’ mobile devices become telecom network agnostic and are used virtually anywhere. Similar solutions are required for the EV industry, where EV drivers can charge their vehicle irrespective of the destination they intend to travel to. This requires roaming partnership between local and national infrastructure players, e.g., parking lots and gas stations that want to provide charging capabilities to customers.
Infrastructure companies must create roaming agreements with local CPOs/CSOs and use it as a marketing tool to attract customers. Hence, it becomes important for CPOs/CSOs and eMSPs to understand, learn, and prepare their IT system for EV roaming interoperability.
Benefits of EV Roaming for Business Growth
Interoperability for EV roaming capability may become complicated and costly if not planned well. Thus, CPOs/CSOs/eMSPs must collaborate with each other to simplify integration. Before doing that, they must understand the benefits of EV roaming. Some of the benefits are:
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Expand customer base, usage, and generate revenue
Expanding access to already deployed charging stations to a broader customer base will generate new revenue streams and enhance utilization of current stations.
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Lowered expenses
Collaborating with other EV charging providers will enable sharing of infrastructure, costs, and responsibilities, and help reduce software integration and IT expenses.
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Enhanced customer satisfaction
Roaming services via a well-integrated branded app let EV drivers manage charging easily, boosting convenience and customer loyalty.
The Basics: Identifying and Choosing the Right Partner
Based on the above benefits, the business potential of EV roaming is clear. Let’s dive into how you should identify and choose an appropriate partner for EV roaming. There are two main integration and partnership options available to CPOs/CSOs/eMSPs:
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Bilateral partnership with selected set of partners (peer-to-peer OCPI integration)
Such an arrangement allows you to define separate agreements with individual partners whom you select for roaming services. This type of peer-to-peer agreement is very useful and popular for small network operators. It allows them to consolidate large size of stations under their portfolio. Infrastructure players like parking lots, food courts, and gas stations can establish partnerships with selected local operators to offer charging services to their visiting customers.
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Roaming hub integration
Integration with roaming hub opens access to any charging station with roaming hub network for your customers. Popular roaming hubs Hubject and Gireve offer such onetime integration. Real-time monitoring of charging stations, consolidated billing, and data analytics are additional services that some roaming hubs offer.
However, you should be careful and consider that roaming hub integration always comes with higher per session prices. Compared to this, bilateral partnerships have more flexible and lucrative pricing models. Hence, it is important to define and decide your business model and IT integration capabilities before selecting the right option. If you are new to this area, you can reach out to eInfochips for their expertise in the field of EV roaming and set up meetings for discussion.
Roaming integration based on role for CPO/CSO and eMSP
OCPI Roaming Standard and Protocol
Data protocol’s goal is to define standard methods and processes through which multiple systems can interpret, process, receive, and store data. Such standards simplify communication between multiple parties and make it reliable.
The EV roaming world is going through evolution of multiple standard protocols that are exchanging information about customers, charging sessions, chargers, and transactions. They also define rules and formats of data exchange. The goal is to simplify the EV driver experience and ensure seamless integration.
In EV roaming, four main protocols are prudent and used for integration:
As industry adopts roaming going forward, the EV roaming world is expected to see only one protocol which will be dominant and eventually become standard. OCPI seems to be this protocol with wide industry adoption. This paper will talk about OCPI as you read further.
What is OCPI?
OCPI stands for open charge point interface protocol. This is an open communication protocol between CPOs/CSOs and eMSPs. It is released, maintained, and managed by EV roaming foundation. EV roaming foundation is a community with the intent of keeping roaming protocol independent and freely available to industry.
OCPI provides standard APIs and data structure for:
It is built on microservices based API architecture supporting JSON and HTTP data formats and representation. OCPI stack supports both push and pull data exchange mechanisms. Thus, each integrating entity can choose to fetch data periodically / listen to events and act on real-time basis for updates.
OCPI Versions:
There are two major versions of OCPI protocol in use and an additional one for future roadmap.
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OCPI 2.1.1
This version is widely implemented by multiple parties in the EV world. It is supported by many major platforms and roaming hubs. It serves the roaming purpose well.
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OCPI 2.2.1
This version has new and upcoming features. A few interesting features are highly anticipated in the industry and eagerly awaited. Many organizations across various industries are considering this version for implementation.
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OCPI 3.0
This version is under development. Auto charge, plug and charge, enhanced security, and privacy are the main features of this version. The auto charge feature simplifies the user experience, making it as seamless as plugging the car into a power adapter and unplugging it once fully charged.
OCPI Modules and Their Functionalities
OCPI protocol comprises various modules. Each module has a specific function and purpose for communication and exchange of data between multiple OCPI roles and systems.
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Locations module:
This module handles charging station discovery for EV drives and provides up to date information about their availability. It exposes important information about charge points, such as its geographic location, type of charge points hardware, and supported current type/voltage.
The most important role of a module is providing the ‘availability’ information of the charging station.
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Tariffs module:
The purpose of tariffs module is to provide pricing and tariff details of a specific charge point and session. Tariffs include costs based on the time of day, kWh, or duration of charge.
3. Tokens module:
Used for user identification and to define authorization tokens such as RFID tags. Also, holds credentials for authenticating backend servers between OCPI parties, in the form of passwords and tokens.
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Session's module:
Manages the start, stop, and status of charging sessions effortlessly.
Provides real-time updates regarding usage of the charging station and related sessions.
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CDRs (Charge Detail Record) module:
Rates completed charging sessions, for the purpose of billing and settlement. Ratings are driven by the associated tariff of the given charging session. Holds history of charging sessions and detail about its pricing.
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Commands module:
Command modules allow the remote management of charging stations. Common use cases for remote charger management include updating charging station firmware from the cloud and starting/stopping charging sessions.
Apart from the above-mentioned key modules, OCPI provides security and smart charging functionalities in integration with energy hubs. Roaming integration is also possible with OCPI. Future versions of OCPI will enable real-time charging station monitoring, data analytics, and payment gateway integration.
Summary and Way Forward:
To make the best use of OCPI and remain competitive, EV roaming roadmap planning, and use of the latest protocol is essential.
The most important step forward is to answer some vital questions about roaming scope, justification, and the overall project. These questions are:
Preparing for OCPI
If you need help in preparing a business case considering your model of operation and location, get eInfochips’ consultative advice, where we help you build real world TCO for your solution.
Leverage our expertise in the EV domain and understand various functions of OCPI and its modules. Identify the MVP that is most suitable for you, utilizing existing infrastructure. Get advice on data cleaning and integration.
Contact us! sales@eInfochips.com
Establishing the Groundwork: Organize Your Charger Data
As we understood the basics of EV roaming, it is essential to define the starting point and build on top of it. It is important to define the identification of your chargers by answering the questions below:
In OCPI, the recommended standard is to use the eMI3-based format for uniquely identifying chargers. The eMI3 syntax is widely adopted and is user-friendly.
<EVSE ID> = <Country Code> <S> <Spot Operator ID> <S> <ID Type> <Power Outlet ID>
Such format defines a charger uniquely across the globe.
In a real-world scenario, CPO/CSO already has a charger management solution deployed with a set of existing chargers. Thus, for OCPI implementation, the identity of charger shall be renamed and mapped to eMI3 charger ID to make charger roaming compliant.
Overall, the goal of the naming convention is to operate a charger independently irrespective of the provider and allow such multiple EVSEs to exist in the ecosystem without conflicts.
In the real world, a charger, known as EVSE in OCPI terminology, may have multiple connectors. At a time only one connector remains active. Below is the OCPP 2.x representation of an EVSE having multiple connectors.
Reference Image from OCPI 2.x specification
However, in OCPI, similar representation is used with logical entity location on top of the EVSE. So, that EVSE can be identified at a given location.
Example from OCPP 2.x:
The charging station has three EVSE ports and four connectors. On the left, there is one EVSE and a connector. On the right, one EVSE has three connectors. Most of the management platforms support OCPP 1.5 or 1.6. Thus, it is imperative to pursue re-structuring of the charger data for roaming purposes.
Quicker time to market
Who is charging?
It is not only about representing physical equipment in the OCPI standard using eMI3 format but also customers, drivers, and subscribers should also be defined in a standard format. In OCPI, the contract ID is tied to the EV driver and is mapped into the eMSP platform.
It is recommended to also use eMI3 standard contract ID format. The EV driver contracts are represented as an eMA ID.
In the real-world scenario, no platform can define hierarchy such as customer, billing party, driver, subscription, token, and RFID. Thus, it is essential to agree that sources of data should be identified and mapping it to the right entity is defined before OCPI implementation. This requires defining new data models.
Aligning business operations
To implement OCPI, you must consider three key areas:
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Aligning your charger’s ID and placing the right QR codes
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Charging mechanism for EV Drivers
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EV drivers should be well informed in advance that for use of the public commercial chargers, they might be charged for parking fees, energy price, and duration of charging depending on the location and place of charging.
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Partner and billing settlement
Assess your technical architecture and integration
For charging station operator, there are two options for integration:
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Leverage existing CSMS platform:
Build an OCPI layer on top of your existing CSMS platform to handle roaming functionality.
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Build separate OCPI as a platform:
Alternatively, you can create a new platform with custom APIs, hooks, and shared resources for OCPI communication.
The choice of solution approach depends on multiple factors, such as the use of existing architecture, technical stack, and roadmap planning. Architectural decisions are dependent on the role that you plan to play in the OCPI ecosystem. If you are looking to play the eMSP role, then you may opt for simpler architecture with less complexity but flexible integration option.
If you want to play the CPO role, then you need robust scalable solutions that can integrate with multiple parties.
eInfochips can provide a solutions architect with experience in OCPI to help with the above-mentioned processes. An experienced professional team can offer guidance and support in conducting a comprehensive analysis, mapping the required integration points, and identifying any inter-system dependencies.
Wrapping It Up – Part Two
OCPI solution readiness can be smooth and hassle-free if you plan to engage experienced professionals who have the ability to navigate through practical complexity of its implementation. The best option is to have someone who understands different aspects of launching the EV roaming services:
Preliminary steps to get to implementation stage:
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Understand Your Data Structure:
Know where your data resides and its structure. Consider data cleaning processes to avoid integration issues.
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In-house Team and External Experts:
Build an internal team and work with external industry experts to guide you through the implementation.
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Review Your Platform’s Technical Architecture:
Analyze your current platform and determine the best approach to integrate roaming services.
You can leverage eInfochips’ expertise for your OCPI implementation where our expert team can help you with the right data strategy, integration, and API setup points.
Part Three: Adopting an MVP Approach for Roaming
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Choose minimal module:
For instance, plan the first implementation as a CPO/CSO with charging station location data aggregation. This requires the implementation of only the location modules and sharing the charging station's location data and availability. This allows EV drivers to search for nearby charging stations, irrespective of the provider.
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Identify right OCPI role:
In OCPI it is imperative to define a business model of your choice and choose only one role for implementation e.g., either CPO/CSO or eMSP. A clear mindset reduces development iterations and ensures the right time to market. You can implement key learnings from the first chosen role in the second implementation and expand further if you plan to play multiple roles in OCPI.
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Keep it simple:
Stick to the pull method of protocol implementation to ensure it is used for passive integration. Push is an optional implementation in OCPI; and this method is only useful if you want to pursue both options due to multiple partner integration. If the need arises, refactor your logic of implementation to adopt both push and pull mechanisms.
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Do a sparse implementation:
Try to use minimal objects and entities data based on use cases. Limit the use of query parameters specific to integration. Analyze the specification thoroughly and identify details of minimum requirement.
Conclusion
To summarize, this white paper discusses a comprehensive overview of the EV roaming solutions covering challenges, solutions, various protocols, and guidelines to start the roaming journey. This paper delves into the fundamentals of EV roaming, highlighting its benefits and challenges. We have examined the key aspects to help you understand this technology and its influence on the future of electric vehicles. To further collaborate and expand your knowledge on this topic, you can refer to eInfochips Conxero EV Solution.
EInfochips' experience on EV Charging Management Software helps it to provide consultative services to solve business problems that CPO/e-MSPs are facing today.
eInfochips provides its custom design and digital engineering services to help CPOs/e-MSPs to start their roaming journey. eInfochips service offering enables CPO/CSO to integrate with the roaming hub/establish peer-to-peer connection by implementing OCPI protocol stack. eInfochips has the capability to perform customization required for successful roaming implementation. Schedule a meeting to understand the solution offering on EV Roaming with eInfochips.
Author:
Shalin Shah is an experienced industry leader in solution and product management, specializing in IoT and cloud technologies. He has worked with both open-source and cloud platforms to design, build, and manage scalable IoT solutions.
