The U.S. Joint Office of Energy and Transportation is pushing for standardization of communications protocols in electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure to combat the compatibility issues that come proprietary development.
The agency has partnered with Linux Foundation Energy (LF Energy) to build an open source reference implementation for electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure.
LF Energy was launched in 2018 by the Linux Foundation to increase the effectiveness of digital technologies in the electricity sector by using open source software and practices.
LF Energy will use its EVerest project to develop and maintain an open source software stack for energy communications across charging stations, vehicles, generation resources, batteries, adjacent chargers, power grids, backend payment systems, user interfaces, and mobile devices. LF Energy describes EVerest as an operating system designed to tackle the intricacies of EV charging infrastructure head-on.
This will reduce instances of incompatibility that result from proprietary systems and make charging more reliable for EV drivers. These reliability and interoperability issues often stem from a lack of standardization that can impede communications between the vehicle and charger, or payment processing.
The collaborative development model offered by open source and the neutral governance structure provided by LF Energy is expected to accelerating development and deployment of EV infrastructure while Increasing customizability for different use cases. It will provide for long-term maintainability of the hardware while avoiding the problem of vendor-lock in, which hinders the development of a commercial support ecosystem.
The Joint Office will dedicate resources to improving the EVerest project, including coordination, community engagement and software code.
Dr. K. Shankari, who serves as principal software architect for the standards and reliability program at the Joint Office, has been appointed to the EVerest Technical Steering Committee which sets the technical direction for the project.
This is a pioneering example of the federal government collaborating to deploying code into an open source project. With the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Standards requiring that EV chargers conform to Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) 2.0.1 no later than February 28, 2024, it is urgent that charger manufacturers consider a standardized reference implementation that is OCPP 2.0.1 compatible. Everest is one such reference implementation.
"The EVerest project has been demonstrated in pilots around the world to make EV charging far more reliable and reduces the friction and frustration EV drivers have experienced when a charger fails to work or is not continually maintained," said LF Energy Executive Director Alex Thornton, who added that the goal of the project is to create a robust firmware stack that will stand the test of time, and be maintained by “…an active and growing global community to ensure the nation's charging infrastructure meets the needs of a growing fleet of electric vehicles today and into the future."
LF Energy EVerest is an open source modular framework for EV charging, consisting of multiple modules which can be configured and customized. In addition to OCPP, it also covers many other major industry standards such as ISO 15118-20 as well as flexible logic to connect all of them. EVerest was originated by PIONIX GmbH and contributed to LF Energy in early 2022 and is licensed under Apache 2.0.
EVerest uses modules to manage specific tasks within the EV charging process. These modules communicate through MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) brokers for interaction between components. This architecture ensures that each module is loosely coupled, making it easier to swap and upgrade individual components without disrupting the entire system.
A free webinar will be held on January 29 at 10 am US EST with representatives from the Joint Office and the LF Energy community to discuss this collaboration further and how other stakeholders can get involved. Register for free here.