OCPP stands for "Open Charge Point Protocol". It's the language of EV chargers. There is a good chance your EV charger is OCPP compliant, which is great because that means you can connect it to many different systems for payment, energy management and more.
The history of OCPP
OCPP was invented by a Dutch foundation called "E-Laad", this is a group of companies active in (EV) infrastructure. OCPP was released in 2009 and enables charge points to be accessed, read and controlled. OCPP was initially released as Soap-XML but the currently most common used version is the Json format. Most chargers and OCPP backoffices you come across will support OCPP 1.6J or higher, where the "J" in this case stands for "Json".
OCPP is a free and open protocol that has since spread across the world and was recently even adopted in the USA as a mandatory communications protocol for EV chargers to support.
What can I do with OCPP?
If your charger has an internet access, it can talk to a "Websocket". This is the URL to which the charger will try to speak to using the OCPP. As mentioned, this allows your EV charger to be connected to the outside world and its EV charger backoffices and other systems. The primary functions of OCPP are:
Authorise transactions based on presented Charge Cards.
Change important settings of the charger, such as maximum power.
Read current power usage of the charger.
Start, stop and pause transactions.
Smart Charging profiles: These allow different levels of maximum power at different times of the day. Plugchoice uses OCPP Smart Charging Profiles to create charging schedules based on power consumption, solar forecasts and energy prices.
Download the "Diagnostics" of the charger. These usually contain log files and transactions which are stored locally on the charger. This is an important function for technical support of EV chargers.
Updating firmware.
Resetting the charger.
Getting the State of Charge of the car's Battery (usually only DC chargers can do this, unless your AC charger and electric vehicle both support ISO15118 to an advanced degree). The State of Charge (SoC) is they key to creating the smartest Energy Management Systems for EV chargers.
Why OCPP?
Some chargers don't have OCPP. Instead they have some sort of custom interface with which the developer is running the charger's app and other interfaces. This is fine, until you want to connect your charger to any other system that is not made by the same EV Charger OEM. Because OCPP is a standard, you can connect every charger to an OCPP backoffice. This is must-have for billing and energy management solutions, and in the case of Plugchoice, you can also enjoy the Pluggy smart charging app to connect the charger to even more systems through Plugchoice's OCPP Proxy.
What is an OCPP Proxy?
There is a problem with OCPP. The problem is that you only have one "websocket" to talk to. This means an EV Charger can only connect to one backoffice, not several at the same time. This poses a problem because it means you are always locked into one backoffice solution, and if you want to stop the subscription, you will lose connection to the charger and you're locked out. This is also called a "Websocket Lock" or "SIM Lock". Furthermore, the fact that you cannot run two or more OCPP backoffices on one charger at the same time, means you will not be able to enjoy different features of different OCPP backoffices. Instead, you'll, have to do with just one product which greatly limits what your charger can do.
An OCPP Proxy, or OCPP Broker, is a super simple OCPP backoffice that connects directly to your charger. Then, you can connect one or multiple other backoffices to that OCPP Proxy. The OCPP Proxy itself does absolutely nothing but just receive and forward the traffic from the charger to the connected backoffices and vice versa.
What can I do with an OCPP Proxy?
With an OCPP Proxy, you can connect your charger to different backoffices at the same time. You can also connect and disconnect to backoffices with the click of a button, which means you can choose and leave whenever you want.
An OCPP Proxy is useful for:
End users: end users can pick and choose which OCPP services they want to connect to their charger without the fear of being locked in for life.
Retailers and installers of EV charging stations can use the OCPP proxy to put their own service next to the service their customer wants.
Manufacturers of EV Charging Stations can also enjoy the Proxy for the same reasons of diagnostics and expand their product range by integrating different solutions with their chargers to generate a more relevant proposition.
Do you want to know more about the use cases of a Proxy and how it works? Check out this page:
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