Open Charge Alliance launches OCPP 2.0

ARNHEM, The Netherlands, April 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On April 11^th the newest version of the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) became available for all charging stations manufacturers and operators. The Open Charge Alliance (OCA), the international non-profit organization advancing open standards for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, has updated and expanded their protocols with new features regarding security, smart charging and improved transaction handling. OCPP is open source, patent- and royalty-free with no cost or licensing barriers for adoption. The ultimate goal is to have a global standard for all charging stations that provides easy access for EV-drivers. 

OCPP is considered the de-facto standard for charging infrastructure interoperability among charging equipment manufacturers, software and systems providers, charging network operators and research organizations. The OCA hosts technical, compliance and marketing workgroups that advance the protocol. The development of the OCPP is accelerating adoption of electric vehicles as open standards among charging stations increase ease of both charging and billing.

Feedback from OCPP community

OCPP 2.0 is the follow up to the October 2015 version OCPP 1.6. It has a lot of new and improved features regarding device management, transaction handling, security, smart charging functionalities, 15118 support, support for display and messaging and many additional improvements requested by the EV charging community. During the development and review period of the draft version of OCPP 2.0, the OCA consulted their own membership – more than 100 active participants from 27 countries on five continents – as well as the full community of thousands of OCPP users to gather feedback and user experiences in an open public review.

Smart Charging, enhanced security and improved customer experience

With an increasing demand for fully electric cars worldwide, securing charging station transactions and balancing the electricity grid to prevent capacity problems are key elements for the future. OCPP 2.0 has added secure firmware updates, security logging and event notification and security profiles for authentication (key management for client-side certificates) and secure communication (TLS). To relieve the pressure on the grid, OCPP 2.0 has added Smart Charging functionalities: for topologies with an Energy Management System (EMS), a local controller and for integrated smart charging of the EV, charging station and Charging Station Management System.

Especially welcomed by Charging Station Operators who manage large numbers of charging stations and transactions, the new version of OCPP has improved the transaction handling. It also contains new features to get and set configurations to monitor a Charging Station. This is a long-awaited feature by Charging Station Operators who manage complex multi-vendor (DC fast) charging stations.  OCPP2.0 offers the option to support plug and charge for electric vehicles supporting the ISO 15118 protocol.

OCPP 2.0 is available now for download. All documentation can be found om www.openchargealliance.org.

SOURCE Open Charge Alliance

Related Links

http://www.openchargealliance.org