Home / Solution / What is OCPP?
Why CPIM

OCPP is the shared language of your charging stations.

An open standard defines how a charge point talks to the software that manages it.

Open standardSince 2009CPIM uses 1.6-J
The principle

The station reports, the software answers

OCPP stands for Open Charge Point Protocol.

The station reports who wants to charge, how much power is flowing and when the session ends.

The software answers with a permit, a refusal or a command.

The flow

A charging session takes this path

WallboxCPIMBrowserOCPP 1.6-JHTTPS
The station reports to CPIM, and the result appears in the browser.
Origins

The standard began in the Netherlands

  1. 01

    2009

    ElaadNL starts work in the Netherlands on a shared protocol for charge points.

  2. 02

    2014

    Stewardship passes to the Open Charge Alliance, a body of manufacturers and operators.

  3. 03

    2015

    OCPP 1.6 is published and becomes the most widely used version on the market.

In the application

What the connection looks like from inside

Address, identifier and password — a station needs no more.

Charge point with WebSocket endpoint, security profile and credentials
The connection details of a station, shown with example data.
In operation

The standard buys you three things

Questions on the standard

Common questions

Does my wallbox need OCPP?

A station needs OCPP to reach a backend at all. Version 1.6 is supported by most devices built in recent years.

Who develops OCPP?

The Open Charge Alliance, a body of manufacturers, operators and researchers. The standard is published openly.

What does the J in 1.6-J mean?

Messages travel as JSON over a permanent connection. The older 1.6-S variant uses SOAP instead.

Does CPIM support OCPP 2.0.1?

Not today. Support is planned, and no date has been set.

Can stations from different manufacturers be mixed?

Yes, as long as every station speaks OCPP 1.6-J.

Does CPIM check the messages a station sends?

Every message is validated against the official OCPP schemas before it takes effect.

Let us check whether your station speaks OCPP 1.6-J.

Send the manufacturer and model, and you will hear what the connection needs.

Prefer e-mail? info@dstech-it.de