An explainer on Unified Energy Interface for EV charging

Inputs from Akhil Jayaprakash (CEO – Pulse Energy) and Anirban Sinha (Senior Associate – FIDE)

What is Unified Energy Interface (UEI)?

UEI is an open network designed for energy transactions. This network links various digital platforms – those dealing in energy and its derivatives – enabling them to interact and transact through a common, interoperable language, the Beckn Protocol. UEI creates a unified ecosystem, integrating disparate digital energy solutions into a cohesive whole. It acts as a dynamic, open network where providers and consumers of energy-related services, such as EV charging, battery swapping, and renewable energy, can seamlessly connect. They use a standardised vocabulary through which each existing or new participant platform can interact with each other to enable discovery and transaction.

For EV charging, why can’t we just leverage UPI to enable interoperability among different Charge Point Operators (CPOs)?

UPI only takes care of shifting money from one person’s wallet/bank account to another, and it does not understand the complex nuances of a charging transaction, like not having the necessary layer of logic to calculate the charges as per a given user’s profile or account privileges or the ability to refund any amount to the user’s wallet if less energy than anticipated is consumed during the charging session. UPI is a banking protocol, whereas UEI, which is based on the Beckn Protocol, is a transactional protocol that understands the business context as well as provides a mechanism for payment using UPI, credit cards and other methods.

UEI vs OCPI

OCPI (Open Charge Point Interface) is one of the most popular EV charging interoperability protocols in the world. It is an API contract between two parties on how to search, start, stop and bill for chargers/charging sessions. OCPI was meant for CPOs who already wish to partner with
each other to figure out how they can authenticate users between their networks and perform billing reconciliation.

European CPOs allow “out of network” users to charge at their chargers using OCPI, and it is expected that this user will be billed at the end of the month by the network that the user is tied to. This works when you are in a country with one or two large charging networks, and service
providers are able to collect money as expected from users (via Credit Cards with no two-factor authentication). In India, however, there are 40+ charging networks, varying from really large charge point operators like Jio-BP and Tata Power to small and medium scale charge point operators; and different modes of payments associated with different EV charging sessions.

Cons of adopting OCPI as is for India

• Multiple contractual agreements – A contractual agreement is necessary between two parties wishing to exchange information about their chargers with each other. This means large players can choose not to get into contractual agreements with a smaller player, wishing to either acquire or starve them out of the market. This is applicable even in a roaming hub scenario.

• Risk of cannibalisation – OCPI integration via a roaming hub or P2P agreement means the participating CPO has to be willingly okay with sharing their charger utilization (e.g., how popular is a charger location) with other CPOs. A large CPO could look at the utilization of a particular location and decide to cannibalize the location for its interest, leaving the participating CPO at a loss.

• Walled garden – Suppose a MapMyIndia, Google Maps, PayTm, or Park+ wishes to offer a seamless charging experience across any charger anywhere in India. In that case, they must approach each CPO individually and set up OCPI agreements which would be a cumbersome exercise.

A recommended approach is to have all CPOs adopt an open API spec to participate in a decentralized interoperable network – which is what UEI aims to achieve.

UEI has the potential to simplify the communication between different stakeholders, such as CPOs, discoms and end consumers. As a participating CPO, we look forward to understanding and contributing to building the mechanisms for energy transactions and the potential areas of implementation. – Kartikey Hariyani, CEO – CHARGE ZONE

UEI is like the universal translator in the EV ecosystem, ensuring that charging stations, vehicles, and central management systems can all communicate seamlessly. UEI represents the key to a smoother and more user-friendly electric mobility experience, connecting the dots in this evolving landscape. Kazam takes pride in being an early innovator and contributing to building UEI to ensure smooth charging experiences across different CPOs. – Akshay Shekhar, CEO – Kazam EV

How does UEI work?

BAP – Beckn Application Provider is a consumer application provider, e.g. PayTM, Google Pay, PhonePe or a CPO app. It’s essentially the application that the consumer uses today. This is the app that the user would download, or the app embedded in his vehicle UI.

BPP – Beckn Platform Provider is a back-end platform provider and represents the seller or Charge Point Operator side.

BG – Beckn Gateway is a registry that informs the network who all are registered as BAP and BPP. The role of the gateway is only to broadcast search queries from registered BAPS to all registered BPPs. The rest of the transactions are all peer-to-peer.

Example of High Level Request Flow – The Beckn Gateway (BG) receives a request from Google Maps to search for the nearest charging stations in Delhi. The BG then broadcasts the request to all the registered Charge Point Operators(CPO). Once the CPO receives the search request, they can directly send their response back to Google Maps without any intermediary in between. So, this first call goes through like a broadcast mechanism; The rest is completely peer-to-peer. This is what makes UEI a way superior protocol compared to OCPI or other roaming protocols.

At present, there are 5386 EV charging points on UEI. Of these, 500 are CCS2 charge points; the rest are AC plug points

An interface like PayTM, Google Pay or PhonePe can just Plug-n-Play into the UEI network, call the service and immediately get access to all the chargers on it.

What are the next steps for the UEI?

Pulse Energy, Kazam EV and Charge Zone have been on-boarded onto the UEI platform. A nonprofit called UEI Alliance is being set up for different stakeholders to join and form a working group for the protocol. Interested charge point operators can reach out to the UEI alliance members via the Beckn Discord channel for now.

Also read: CHARGE+ZONE launches new EV charging software solution ‘ChargeCloud”