How does your charger share data with Voltico to register EREs

To help you register EREs, we need to know how much you've charged. That sounds straightforward, but in practice there's a challenge: your charger may already be communicating with a back-office system. How do we make sure we receive that data too, without you having to switch apps? The answer: an OCPP proxy.

How does a charger communicate with a back-office?

Most chargers installed at home or at a business communicate using a protocol called OCPP: Open Charge Point Protocol. This is the international standard for communication between chargers and the system that manages them, the CSMS (Charge Station Management System), sometimes referred to as a "back-office." Think of the software from your charger manufacturer, or the platform your installer or network manager uses to monitor your charger.

In the standard setup, there's one direct connection: from the charger to the CSMS. Every charging session is sent through that single link.

The challenge: how do we get your charging data?

To register EREs correctly, Voltico needs access to that same charging data: when you charged and how many kWh was charged. Without that data, we can't register anything, let alone validate it.

The simplest situation is when your charger or its platform offers a way to share charging data with third parties. Some systems support this through a direct API integration. But that's far from universal: many chargers and management systems simply don't offer that option.

The solution: an OCPP proxy

A proxy is an intermediary step. Instead of your charger connecting directly to your existing CSMS, it connects to Voltico's proxy. The proxy then transparently forwards all communication to and from your original CSMS. For your charger and your management system, nothing changes. The connection works exactly as before.

The difference: Voltico "listens in" on that connection and captures the charging data needed to register EREs. No duplicate system, no new app, no change to how your charger works.

This isn't a workaround or a stopgap. The OCPP Alliance, the organization that governs the OCPP protocol, explicitly describes this proxy model as a recognized and recommended architecture (OCPP 2.0.1, section 8.2).

How reliable is that?

A proxy sitting between your charger and your management system has to work flawlessly. If the proxy goes down, you lose the connection. That's exactly why Voltico's infrastructure is built with:

• Servers across multiple geographically separated European data centers: if one location fails, others take over automatically

• Redundant network and hardware infrastructure

• Continuous monitoring and automatic failover

The proxy isn't a single server somewhere in the cloud, but a distributed infrastructure designed to eliminate single points of failure. On top of that, after every software update we run automated tests across multiple dimensions to verify that end-to-end connectivity remains intact.

What changes for you?

In practice: almost nothing. You let us know what your original CSMS is or its URL, and set your personal Voltico proxy URL as the address your charger connects to. In many cases this can be configured remotely through the CSMS, or directly on the charger. We handle the rest and make sure all messages reach your original system correctly.

After that, everything runs automatically. Nothing to track, nothing to export, nothing to upload.

Why this beats manual exports

Alternatives you'll find in the market, such as CSV exports, photos of meter readings, and manual uploads, are error-prone and untraceable. The NEa requires that charging data can be unambiguously linked to the correct installation, location, measuring instrument, and time period. Loose files can't do that (more on this in this article).

That's why Voltico built its own proxy, designed specifically for the registration process: every charging session is recorded in real time, linked to your connection and meter, and logged in a digital ledger. That's what a verifier needs to see, and what ensures your EREs are actually approved and paid out. As a customer, you also have everything under one roof: the data integration, the administration, the registration, and the verification. If something goes wrong with the data read-out or the connection, you're dealing with one party that oversees the entire process.

Do you have a qualifying charger at home and want to start claiming EREs? Sign up on our website.