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Future-proofing EV infrastructure with OCPP software

Updated on: May 21, 2025

Electric vehicle sales are expected to exceed over 30 million in 2027, and grow to 73 million per year by 2040, according to optimistic projections from Bloomberg New Energy Future analysts. As the industry begins to prepare for this rapid growth in EV popularity and demand—deploying reliable EV charging infrastructure is a critical step in meeting consumer needs. A future with more electric vehicles will be made possible with smart electric vehicle charging and energy management solutions that offer reliable and interoperable technology to meet evolving drivers’ needs. EV charging management software, also known as OCPP software, is vital for creating a seamless and driver-friendly ecosystem for the future of electric vehicle adoption.

What is Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP)?

OCPP, the Open Charge Point Protocol, is the bedrock of public EV charging infrastructure. OCPP is an open-source communication standard that offers a uniform solution for the method of communication between the Charging Station for EVs and the Charging Point Management System (CPMS). Specifically, OCPP enables bi-directional communication between charging ports and operations platforms. With this bi-directional flow of communication, operators can access real-time charging data, billing information, status updates, and insights into charger functionality and reliability. Practically speaking, OCPP software allows CPOs to monitor, control, and optimize charger management operations across multiple locations from a centralized platform. The protocol has helped standardize the charging experience for operators, manufacturers, and drivers for over a decade.

OCPP was developed in 2009 by the Elaad Foundation during the early stages of EV adoption and growth to create a solution to standardize communication between charging stations and management systems. The Elaad Foundation, started by a consortium of Dutch grid stakeholders, aimed to install 10,000 EV charging stations to meet the growing demand for charging infrastructure in the Netherlands. However, when the foundation began to scale the project, it encountered operational obstacles when procuring charging solutions from different operators and vendors. So, researchers at Elaad developed the early iteration of OCPP to standardize device information exchanges. Soon after, OCPP became the de-facto charging protocol standard for all EV charging technology once adoption grew across Europe and the United States.

Today, the Open Charge Alliance (OCA)— a global industry alliance of EV charging hardware and software vendors, charging network operators and services providers, and research organizations—oversees the OCPP protocol. The OCA ensures that OCPP evolves so EV stakeholders can meet the growing needs of EV drivers.

The importance of OCPP software for optimizing EV charging operations

OCPP-compliant software platforms enhance the EV charging experience by enabling EV charging point operators to optimize all aspects of EV charging and energy management, ensuring network stability and reliability. OCPP software platforms allow CPOs to choose from different OCPP-compliant hardware vendors, mix and match charger equipment types, and ultimately avoid being locked into one manufacturer. This added flexibility allows fleet managers and CPOs to effectively scale operations and future-proof their infrastructure. A fragmented EV landscape, with different closed, proprietary systems, would ultimately dampen consumer satisfaction and damage the growth potential for full transportation decarbonization in the long term. Ultimately, OCPP-compliant EV charging and energy management platforms help foster consumer confidence, encourage EV adoption, and support long-term decarbonization goals.

Driivz’s experience with OCPP globally

With federal programs like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) plan mandating open standards like OCPP and adopting capable software platforms, it will be mission-critical for CPOs using federal grant funding to support interoperability and accessibility. Driivz has led the EV charging solutions industry to swiftly adopt OCCP and charger interoperability into its software platforms. With vast experience in the world’s largest OCPP based implementations and numerous roaming integrations, Driivz complies with ISO 15118, OCPP 2.0.1, ISO27001, and local regulations while supporting more than 1600 charger models.

In 2019, Driivz became one of the first companies worldwide to be certified by the OCA for OCPP 1.6, and subsequently, in 2023, for OCPP 2.0.1. Over the last decade, Driivz has collaborated with industry stakeholders to refine and promote OCPP standards, ensuring the protocol evolves alongside market demands. Driivz, an OCA member and a pioneer in the EV charging industry, worked with the OCA as a “golden node” to validate the OCPP 2.0.1 conformance test cases and testing procedures.

Our work globally reminds us that OCPP compliance ensures that EV charging networks remain adaptable to evolving needs of the market, enabling a more cohesive EV charging landscape. By leveraging OCPP’s open framework, Driivz’s platform empowers operators to deploy, manage, and scale charging networks with unmatched flexibility. Globally, Driivz has specialized in creating solutions for:

Advanced Energy Management: OCPP 2.0.1 supports smart energy management solutions, optimizing grid interaction and reducing costs.
Enhanced Security: OCPP-based protocols ensure secure data exchange, protecting both operators and drivers.
Global Scalability: Driivz’s OCPP solutions adapt to various regulatory environments, supporting operators across North America, Europe, and Asia.

The future of OCPP software adoption

As EV adoption grows, the role of OCPP platforms will continue to expand and support the needs of drivers and operators. In the near future, industry experts anticipate that OCPP will need to support the development of:

Smart Grid integrations: OCPP will be critical in enabling Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and bidirectional charging, enhancing grid stability and energy efficiency.
Enhanced consumer experience: Future OCPP iterations will prioritize user-friendly interfaces, real-time updates, and seamless mobile app integration.

Conclusion

Simply put, OCPP is more than just a communication standard; it is the backbone of the EV charging ecosystem. By fostering collaboration among manufacturers, operators, and energy stakeholders, OCPP software platforms enable the EV market to scale rapidly while maintaining reliability and availability.

For Driivz and other smart charging solution providers, OCPP offers the flexibility and innovation needed to shape the future of transportation. As the EV revolution accelerates, protocols like OCPP will remain at the forefront, ensuring that every driver, fleet manager, and operator benefits from a reliable and interoperable charging ecosystem.

FAQs

OCPP is the open-source protocol that has been widely adopted by the EV charging industry as the standard for communications between OCPP software and EV charging stations. As such, OCPP is a key enabler of growth. It prevents vendor lock-in since network operators can choose any OCPP-compliant charger for their network and work with any OCPP-compliant EV charging management software. This interoperability gives operators flexibility to grow their networks and future-proofs their investment as the industry continues to evolve, so EV charging networks can continue to support the exponential growth in EV adoption.

Below are some of the main capabilities that OCPP software should provide to EV charging network operators.

EV charging operations: Manage all aspects of the charging stations in a network – provide detailed logs, deploy firmware versions, run diagnostics, monitor status, and remotely manage issues when possible.

EV charging billing: Manage all aspects of billing operations including defining products, plans, and tariffs, managing charger hosts, processing payments, and supporting integration with roaming partners.

Managing drivers: Manage drivers’ accounts including their personal information, charging history, billing balance, contracts, transactions, support tickets and more.

Energy management: Efficiently monitor, manage, and adjust the energy consumption of EVs at their facilities, and balance the power demand throughout the day. Using this module, operators shift charging loads based on limitations of the local electricity grid, availability of renewable energy sources, preconfigured policies, and the needs of electric vehicle owners.

Reporting and analytics: Reports relating to charger statuses and usage, transactions, faults and issues, maintenance data about drivers’ charging behaviour and their vehicles, as well as detailed billing reports about revenue, profits and losses, receivables, payables, invoicing and more.

OCPP 2.0.1 introduces several features and improvements:

Document structure: The specification uses informative text, use cases, and tables of requirements to make it easier to read, implement and test.

Device model: This is a new framework that provides detailed charging station data to enhance visibility monitoring, and remote management.

Transaction handling: Consolidated data and messages to streamline transaction handling, reduce data transfer, and provide more granular information to aid billing, analysis, and troubleshooting.

Security: Built-in data encryption supporting secure connections between the OCPP software and the charging station along with other improvements to harden the system against cyberattacks.

Smart charging: Advanced smart charging that optimizes the use of energy by enabling the network operator to send and update charging profiles according to vehicle needs and grid conditions.

Improved customer experience: OCPP 2.0.1 enables network operators to improve customer experience by supporting multiple payment types, driver language preferences, displaying applicable tariffs before charging, running costs during a charging session, final costs and more.

Native integration with ISO 15118: This provides advanced capabilities like Plug & Charge when supported by both the EV and the EV charging station.

Vehicle-to-grid: Support for V2G enables vehicles to provide supplemental energy back to the grid to improve load balancing and help meet demand.

The Open Charge Alliance (OCA) is an alliance of software and hardware vendors, service providers, and research organizations connected to the EV charging industry. The OCA introduced the OCPP protocol in 2010 and continues to maintain and develop it since then. Through industry-wide collaboration, education, testing, and certification, the OCA has promoted widespread adoption of and compliance with the protocol making it the de-facto industry standard for communications between OCPP software and EV charging stations.

Driivz is a pioneer in OCPP software development and has collaborated closely with the OCA on the development of the OCPP protocol. It was one of the first EV charging and energy management platforms to support OCPP and was, indeed, the first to be certified by the OCA for both OCPP 1.6 and OCPP 2.0.1. Driivz’s OCPP software is often used as a golden node by the OCA to certify EV charging stations for the latest versions of OCPP. Driivz powers some of the largest EV charging networks globally. It is a highly scalable, robust, and modular end-to-end platform that offers great breadth and depth of functionality to meet the needs of all its customers. As a future-proof platform, Driivz constantly strives to keep its OCPP software on the leading edge in an early-stage industry that is constantly evolving.

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