What is OCPP? What is OCPP's relevance to Electric Vehicle Charging?

OCPP helps the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) and CSMS (Charging station management system) to communicate with each other through its open platform. This video describes the basics of OCPP and its significance in an EV Charging Setup.

Transcript: This video talks about What is OCPP and what is the significance of this protocol in Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure.

OCPP stands for Open Charge Point Protocol, maintained by Open Charge Alliance based out of Netherlands. It is a communication protocol that facilitates the exchange of information between an EV charger and its backend management system. OCPP is an internationally adopted Open source standard - that means there is no licensing barrier involved in adopting it. The aim of OCPP is to foster interoperability between charging equipment and backend charging management systems provided by different vendors.

Let’s look at where the OCPP sits in an EV charging setup:
This diagram shows the different components involved in EV charging infra. One critical component here is CSMS or Charing stations management system. It is the back-end system that allows the charging point operators to manage and supervise operations at the charging facility, such as fixing charging tariffs, generating reports and remotely manage the chargers. Communication between EVSE and CSMS is key to smoothly running the charging operations and this is where OCPP comes into picture. It is the protocol for communication between the Charging station and Charging stations management system.

Here are a few examples of operations supported via the OCPP:
For the start of charging operation, pre-authorisation is required to identify and allow the EV user to use the service. Providing the charging session details to backend system, to calculate the charges
User apps functionality to locate the charging stations and make reservations. Necessary data from charging session is transferred to CSMS. Charging stations operators can the see real-time status of all charging equipment - e.g. which EVSEs are available, currently charging or suspended. Remotely control the charging session - stop or start a charging event or change the status of a charger. Upgrade firmware and configure the charging points. Read and repair errors logged by the EVSEs.

As compared to a proprietary protocol, what are the benefits of OCPP? OCPP makes it possible to connect any CSMS with any charging station, (provided both are OCPP compliant). A charging facility owner is free to select the charging network provider that meets his needs.
The standardized open protocol gives charge point operators the flexibility to procure charging equipment from multiple OCPP compliant manufacturers. OCPP is independent of the charging technique, it works with all charging protocols— CHAdeMO, CCS or GB/T. New capabilities and improvements can be added to the chargers relatively easily through the openness of the protocol.
Latest OCPP versions are compliant with other standards such as ISO 15118 that defines a protocol for bi-directional energy transfer between EVs and the Grid, as well as OpenADR to facilitate grid communication and automated demand response.

Smart Charging - refers to the ability to automatically adjust charging patterns, based on charging schedules and energy pricing. OCPP (version 1.6 onwards) provides the CSMS an ability to optimally schedule charging of EVs. Smart Charging enables control over supply to specific vehicles by putting limits on maximum power that can be supplied by each charging gun. Also allows priority charging for selected vehicles over others. Also, smart charging helps regulate total energy consumption and its associated cost by taking into account the factors such as load capacity, Time of Day tariff and availability of renewable power. On supply side, OCPP compliance with other protocols allows for integration with Grid to support it during peak demand time.

These are the released versions of OCPP by Open Charge Alliance: OCPP 1.5 released in 2012, OCPP 2.0. 1 (J) released in March 2020

The certification programs are open for members and non-members. Conformance to OCPP specifications is validated by authorised independent test agencies to issue the certificate. For a Charging Station Management System implementation, a full certificate is required, that means the product has implemented all features of the protocol and has successfully completed all certification tests. For a charging station implementation, one can choose either a full or a subset certificate. A Subset Certified product enables the vendor to indicate what sets of features of OCPP 1.6 are implemented in the product and to receive a partial certificate for those specific features.

Reference article - https://evreporter.com/ocpp-and-ev-ch...
https://www.openchargealliance.org/up...
https://evreporter.com/guide-to-ev-ch...