All about Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP 1.6) certification program | Different Types, Cost, Process..etc

The Open Charge Alliance - OCA has launched an independent certification program, through which the charging station manufacturers and Charging Station Management System providers (CSMS / back office) can now be able to conform their OCPP 1.6 implementations according to the official OCPP specification.

This certification program will help the CS manufactures & CSMS platform to exhibit a clear status of their OCPP implementation to their clients. Likewise, it will also be beneficial for the consumers of the OCPP products without a need to test & validate the implementation themselves.  For example: Charge Point Operators (CPO) should be able to use the certificate to see whether a charging station is guaranteed to be compatible with their CSMS or not, without buying and testing each product with their back-office systems).

According to Open Charge Alliance, two charging station manufacturers (EVBOX & Alfen) and two CSMS platform providers (Driivz & Greenlots) have already been certified for their OCPP 1.6 implementations.

Different types of OCPP 1.6 certificates

There are about more than 150 charging stations and CSMS companies are part of the Open charge alliance; however not all of them are fully OCPP compliant. Only a few have implemented all the functionality, smart charging and security profiles defined in the OCPP protocol; rest of them have implemented only the basic functionalities.

This has always been a challenge for the buyers such as charge point operators (CPO) to verify whether a charging station is guaranteed to be compatible with their CSMS or not. Fortunately, this OCPP certification gives a clear view on what is actually implemented and what is not.

Which versions of OCPP can be certified?

Over the last 10 years, there are numerous versions of OCPP have been released and are in-use in the field today. So, it’s not practical to create/retest all those existing stations/platforms. So, for now only OCPP 1.6 can be fully tested and certified.

💡 OCPP versions older than OCPP 1.6 (such as OCPP 0.7, OCPP 1.2, and OCPP 1.5) as well OCPP 2.0 are not covered under the current OCPP certification program. However, the open charge alliance is working on OCPP2.0 certification that will follow anytime soon.

What is the process to get OCPP certification?

Open Charge Alliance has defined a set of test procedures and test plans for the certification compliance. However, the actual tests will be performed by independent testing laboratories. So far, OCA has selected three laboratories DNV-GL, KSGA and Dekra, which are present in North America, Europe and in Asia.

💡 Detailed certification process flow and instructions can be downloaded from here.

Above is the official OCA link, which shall give an overview on the test coverage, vendor eligibility, device eligibility, documents to be submitted, lead time, PASS/FAIL criteria, test flow, and certification deliverables of test laboratories (DNV-GL, KSGA and Dekra) and Open Charge Alliance (OCA) in detail.

OCPP Certification tests overview

To become OCPP certified, the tested Device Under Test (DUT), must successfully pass the following two categories of tests:

1. Conformance tests: the tested DUT is tested against the OCPP Compliance Testing Tool. The tool has built in validations that should not fail during certification tests. With these validations the Tool verifies whether the DUT has implemented the OCPP specification correctly.

2. Performance measurements: several performance values of the tested DUT are measured and give an idea how the device behaves in a lab environment. The performance parameters are stated by the vendor in the Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement (PICS).

💡 Detailed test procedures and test plan ca be downloaded from here. This document may give a clear idea on how each of the test cases will be executed and about the pre-requisites, measurements and acceptance criteria for each of them.

How much is the OCPP certification test cost?

Below are the “maximum” costs indicated by the Open charge alliance. The certified labs (DNV-GL, KSGA and Dekra can not charge more than this amount for the testing.

Please read all the detailed info at: https://www.openchargealliance.org/