Founded as the Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) Forum, the consortium’s members include ABB, Eaton, ESB, E-laad, Greenlots and others, with a combined 10,000 charging point installations sharing standardised software which allows units from different manufacturers to communicate.

Version two of the OCPP software platform is set to launch in the coming weeks, and the Alliance is now seeking additional members to help standardise an even larger share of the public charging infrastructure. In turn, this is aimed at allowing drivers to ‘roam’ across different networks without requiring numerous membership cards and facilitate long-distance travel.

Onoph Caron, founding member of the Open Charge Alliance and director of E-laad, said: ‘For the past several years we have promoted the benefits of OCPP in order to make EV networks accessible. In that short amount of time, OCPP has become the accepted protocol in 50 countries and over 10,000 stations. The enduring nature of OCPP—an open protocol with no cost or licensing barriers to adoption—has given it a strong foothold and deep relevance in Europe and other markets.’