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The Charge Point Podcast

Christophe Lephilibert

The Charge Point Podcast is your gateway to the future of EV charging. In each episode, we dive deep into the world of EV infrastructure, offering insights and perspectives from industry leaders, innovators, and the people at the forefront of deploying charging networks. Join us to explore the exciting developments that are accelerating our world towards sustainable mobility. More information about our Mission, Vision and Values here: https://www.flexecharge.com/company/about-us

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  • 29 episodes
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  • Avg 34 min
  • English

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  • Thursday · 54 min

    Episode 62 - Location, Execution, Capital: What Makes a CPO Profitable, with Chargalytics

    Summary Europe’s public charging market is growing up. After more than a decade of building networks on grants, optimism and guesswork, charge point operators (CPOs) now face investors who expect returns, prime locations that are filling up fast, and a market heading for consolidation. The question every CPO board is asking is simple: what actually makes a charging network profitable? Ole Henrik Hannisdahl has seen that question from every angle. He joined Norway’s EV programme in 2009, took over as CEO of Grønn Kontakt (later Mer Norway) in 2014, and grew it from three employees and a customer list in Excel to around 300,000 customers and a solidly positive EBITDA. Today, he is the founder of Chargalytics, a market intelligence platform that models charging demand, location quality and CPO performance from millions of real charging sessions. He also advises companies across the EV charging industry. In this conversation with host Christophe Lephilibert, Ole Henrik breaks CPO profitability down into three factors: location, execution and capital. He explains why EBITDA can mislead investors in an asset-heavy business, why the operator behind a site matters as much as the site itself, and why property owners are set to win as Europe’s CPO market consolidates. Along the way, he shares what Norway can still teach the rest of Europe, the lessons the industry learned the hard way on roaming, and the two decisions he would take on day one as CEO of a large European CPO. What you’ll learn Why EBITDA is a misleading measure of CPO profitability, and why EBIT and disciplined capital deployment decide whether a charging network creates value. How the Erlang C queuing model explains why charging networks deliver less queuing and higher utilisation as EV density and hub size grow. What the Chargalytics CPO execution score reveals: fuel retailers and Tesla earn about twice as much from the same location as asset-focused operators. Why a stronger retail strategy, including treating marketing as an investment, is the fastest way to lift returns on a network that is already built. How a four-box model of CPO archetypes (property owners versus tenants, charging for profit versus charging for synergies) predicts who wins as the market consolidates. Why fast charging is priced as a convenience product, and why drivers kept topping up at shopping centres near home even as battery sizes grew. What Norway, with BEVs at around 95 percent of new car sales, shows about scaling, grid capacity and user expectations. Why public money should mostly stay out of compliance networks, and why many early coverage sites are now being abandoned at reinvestment time. Notable quotes “If you’re a reasonably decent operator, you should be able to get an EBITDA of 60 to even close to 70%. But EBIT is where the game is, because you are doing something very asset heavy, something very capital intensive.” - Ole Henrik Hannisdahl “Every CPO that doesn’t operate on their own property will have to renegotiate essentially their entire network at some point. And every time you renegotiate your network, you’re in slightly worse position, I think, than last time.” - Ole Henrik Hannisdahl “I fully expect to see a McDonald’s charging arm at some point over the next 10 years.” - Ole Henrik Hannisdahl About the guest Ole Henrik Hannisdahl is the founder of Chargalytics and one of the most experienced voices in European EV charging. He started in e-mobility in 2009 as project lead for Grønn Bil, Norway’s programme to put 200,000 EVs on the road. He then led Grønn Kontakt and Mer Norway as CEO from 2014 to 2021, expanding the business into Sweden, Germany and the UK. Through Chargalytics, he now provides market intelligence, CPO benchmarking and location analytics to charge point operators, investors and other industry players, alongside advisory work for companies in and beyond EV charging. Links Ole Henrik Hannisdahl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannisdahl/ Chargalytics: https://www.chargalytics.com What does it take for a CPO to be profitable? (2023) https://www.chargalytics.com/deep-dives/what-does-it-take-for-a-cpo-to-be-profitable The Consolidation Game: What Do Future CPOs Look Like? https://www.chargalytics.com/deep-dives/the-consolidation-game-what-do-future-cpos-look-like The third plug is worth more than the twelfth (Erlang C and site utilisation): https://www.chargalytics.com/deep-dives/plugs-versus-power-erlang-2026 Related listening Episode 18 with Osprey Charging and Powerdot on CPO branding and marketing, and Episode 55 with ORLEN on how a fuel retailer scales its charging network. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • October 22 · 24 min

    Episode 61 – Why Solar, Storage and EV Charging Are Becoming One System – with Sungrow

    Summary Solar, battery storage and EV charging used to be planned as three separate projects, each with its own business case. That is changing quickly. Rising energy prices and slow grid connections are pushing charge point operators across Europe to design PV, BESS and chargers together as one integrated system. For CPOs planning high-power sites, the question is shifting from how many chargers to buy towards how to design the whole site around the grid, the energy and the vehicles to come. In Episode 61 of the Charge Point Podcast, Christophe Lephilibert speaks with Christos Tsegkis, Regional Manager EV Charging for DACH, the Nordics and Southeastern Europe at Sungrow. Sungrow started in PV inverters, then expanded into battery storage and now builds EV chargers from AC up to megawatt class. Christos works with CPOs, logistics companies and investors who are combining solar, storage and charging, and he sees first-hand how large operators like E.ON Drive Infrastructure now buy BESS and charging as one solution. The conversation covers why the combination of PV, storage and charging has become so attractive, how on-site batteries reduce dependence on DSO approvals, and who should orchestrate energy flows on a complex site. Christos explains how a field-level EMS and an intelligent external EMS work together, what changes for storage once electric trucks charge at megawatt level, and the one piece of advice he gives every CPO before investing in BESS. What you’ll learn Why large CPOs now ask for combined PV, BESS and EV charging solutions from the start of a project. How grid connection approvals have become the common bottleneck for charging projects across Europe, and why mature markets like Germany and the Nordics feel it first. How a battery on site lets CPOs keep building and serve peak demand while waiting for grid expansion. What Sungrow’s BESS deployments with E.ON Drive Infrastructure signal about the direction of the European charging market. How Sungrow’s internal EMS orchestrates its own products in the field, and where an external EMS adds intelligence on dynamic tariffs, markets and the grid. Why Norway’s early move to dynamic tariffs shows how energy management lifts the return on a charging site. How the role of storage moves from peak shaving to dynamic power allocation once many trucks charge at megawatt level at the same time. Why Christos advises CPOs to plan for the next two to three years and design each site around its specific location. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to the Charge Point Podcast 00:38 Intro: a little sunshine for the rainy season 02:20 Christos’s journey from solar and wind to e-mobility 04:14 From PV inverters to megawatt chargers: Sungrow’s evolution 06:15 Why PV, storage and charging is a winning combination 08:07 Grid bottlenecks: how storage reduces dependence on DSOs 12:06 Sungrow PowerStack: the typical BESS setup for charging sites 13:31 Orchestration: who decides where every kilowatt hour goes? 15:24 E.ON Drive Infrastructure and the end of standalone projects 17:52 Megawatt charging for trucks: from peak shaving to dynamic power allocation 20:39 Christos’s advice for CPOs planning their next high-power sites 22:21 Key takeaways and wrap-up Notable quotes “It comes down always on the DSOs. Some of the DSOs might provide more capacity on a higher pace. Some others, they are a bit slowing down the process. So this is a bottleneck for everyone.” - Christos Tsegkis, Sungrow “If you have megawatt chargers with also 10 or 20 power stacks in one location, then we are talking about dynamic tariffs. We are talking about how we can optimise the whole ecosystem by having also an intelligent EMS in between.” - Christos Tsegkis, Sungrow “It’s not about if I’m going to buy five chargers and five BESS, but how I will optimise the design based on a specific location.” - Christos Tsegkis, Sungrow About the guest Christos Tsegkis is Regional Manager EV Charging for DACH, the Nordics and Southeastern Europe at Sungrow, based at the company’s European headquarters in Munich. He began his career in solar and wind energy almost 14 years ago and has focused on electric mobility since 2019. Christos joined Sungrow three years ago as Business Development Manager for EV charging in DACH and Southeastern Europe, and now leads the company’s EV charging business across three regions, helping CPOs and fleet operators combine solar, battery storage and charging into integrated, scalable solutions. Christos Tsegkis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christos-tsegkis-1696aa3a/ Sungrow: https://en.sungrowpower.com/ Electrive interview with Christos Free on-demand masterclass: co-located BESS for CPOs Co-located batteries are now part of almost every CPO conversation, but connecting and controlling them is still the first big hurdle. In our on-demand masterclass, FLEXECHARGE shows how to solve the connect challenge and unlock value stacking with peak shaving, arbitrage, flexibility revenues and DNO curtailment, with real examples from Recharge, Q8 and other CPOs. Watch it here: https://www.flexecharge.com/resources/webinars/the-power-of-co-located-batteries-unlocking-the-full-revenue-potential Related listening For more on battery economics at fast-charging sites, listen to Episode 54 with Ryan Fisher of BloombergNEF, and to Episode 56 with Michel Verschuere of Yuso on why grid congestion makes co-located BESS essential for CPOs. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • October 7 · 24 min

    Episode 60 - Zero Downtime and Safer CPMS Migrations: Why CPOs Need Broker Forking

    Summary Most conversations about EV charging infrastructure focus on chargers, power and grid connections. Far fewer look at backend architecture, even though it decides whether a site keeps charging when something goes wrong. In the traditional setup, each charger talks to a single charge point management system (CPMS) over OCPP. If that one connection drops, transactions, remote commands and monitoring can stop with it. For critical sites like electric bus depots, and for CPOs migrating networks after an acquisition, that single point of failure is a real business risk. In this episode of the Charge Point Podcast, Christophe Lephilibert speaks with two guests from inside FLEXECHARGE. Szymon Żmijewski is the software developer who built broker forking, FLEXECHARGE's OCPP proxy feature for backend redundancy, designed in close collaboration with Daimler Buses for bus depot operations. Jan Köster, CCO and co-founder of FLEXECHARGE, brings the commercial view from six years of working with CPOs on load management and energy management. Together, they explain how broker forking lets one OCPP proxy maintain connections to a primary, a fallback and a service backend at the same time, why preserving transaction state matters more than simply reconnecting, and how the same architecture lets CPOs migrate between CPMS platforms gradually instead of in one risky switch. They also zoom out to CPO consolidation and specialisation across Europe, and Jan shares the three industry trends he is watching most closely. Chapters What you'll learn Why the traditional one-charger, one-backend model creates a single point of failure that can paralyse an entire charging site when the internet connection drops. How broker forking routes OCPP traffic to three backends, a primary, a secondary fallback and a service backend, each with a distinct role. How a fallback backend keeps charging sessions running at a bus depot when the connection to the primary CPMS is lost. Why OCPP 1.6 transaction IDs make multi-backend operation hard, and how a mapping layer in the broker keeps three backends in sync without the charger noticing. How the service backend separates monitoring and diagnostics from operations, and how real-world use led to a whitelist of messages it is allowed to send. How broker forking turns a CPMS migration after an acquisition into a controlled, gradual move with sandbox testing. Why Jan sees three trends shaping the market: the shift from hardware to controllable energy assets, the specialisation of CPOs and their tech stacks, and standardisation as the key to winning the consolidation game. Why an OCPP proxy with forking can match the reliability of a direct Modbus integration with the charger. Notable quotes "The primary purpose of a charging site is not to be connected to the internet, it's to charge cars. So when the internet connection fails and that paralyzes the whole site, that creates a serious problem." - Szymon Żmijewski, FLEXECHARGE "The charger thinks that there's only one ID, each of the backends think that there's only one ID, but we internally know that actually there's three different IDs." - Szymon Żmijewski, FLEXECHARGE "The CPOs have realized if they handle each charging site as an individual project, there's no chance to scale. And the ones that have figured it out to standardize are the ones that are taking the lead in the consolidation game." - Jan Köster, FLEXECHARGE About the guests Szymon Żmijewski is a software developer at FLEXECHARGE, the European EV charging software and hardware company, where he works on energy management solutions and hardware integrations for charge point operators. He is the developer behind broker forking, the OCPP proxy feature that gives CPOs backend redundancy, and has worked hands-on on the state preservation and transaction ID mapping that make multi-backend OCPP setups reliable in real-world fleet environments. Jan Köster is CCO and co-founder of FLEXECHARGE, where he leads sales, business development and account management. He has helped grow FLEXECHARGE from load management for small customers into a comprehensive energy management platform for CPOs, with features like broker forking. With a commercial background in industrial control systems for heating, ventilation and lighting, he brings a practical view of the reliability and scalability that critical charging infrastructure demands. Szymon Żmijewski on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/szymon-zmijewski/ Jan Köster on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jankoester/ Related listening: Episode 13 with FLEXECHARGE CEO and co-founder Max Brandt, on how the company evolved into a vendor-independent grid-integration platform. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • September 30 · 35 min

    Episode 59 - How AI and Smart Charging Unlock EV Flexibility Revenue for CPOs - with VUB

    Summary For decades, the energy sector and the mobility sector evolved on separate tracks. Electrification has now merged them, and EV charging sites sit exactly where they meet. For charge point operators, that creates a new kind of asset: a vehicle that has a trip to make, but also a flexible load that can respond to imbalance prices, balancing markets and grid constraints. The question is no longer whether EV flexibility has value, but how CPOs can capture it reliably without compromising the driver. In Episode 59 of The Charge Point Podcast, Christophe Lephilibert speaks with Cedric De Cauwer, professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and researcher at MOBI, the university's electromobility research centre, which is approaching 50 years of work in e-mobility. Cedric started his PhD at MOBI on EV range estimation and gradually moved to grid integration of electric vehicles, which is now his main research domain. His recent work applies reinforcement learning and AI to EV charging, co-located batteries and flexibility services. The conversation covers what his research reveals about smart charging, the Belgian imbalance market, value stacking with co-located batteries, and why aFRR is particularly difficult for EVs. Cedric explains why the use case matters more than the market, why sites like long-term airport parking and truck depots are natural flexibility candidates, and what his new large-scale coordination project aims to solve. He closes with practical advice for CPOs from two perspectives: as a researcher and as a long-time EV driver. What you'll learn How reinforcement learning applied to the Belgian imbalance market cut charging costs in simulations, and even reached negative charging prices. Why the driver is the defining variable in EV flexibility, and why every revenue gain has to be balanced against meeting the driver's charging needs. Why involving drivers is about more than financial incentives: reducing friction in the user interface and gradually building their understanding matters just as much. Why a co-located battery rarely pays off on a single use case such as peak shaving, and how value stacking multiple services improves the return on investment. Why aFRR remains lucrative but is especially hard for EVs, since capacity reservation clashes with unpredictable vehicle availability. Why the real potential lies in treating the EV as a mobility asset first, and using energy services to fulfil its charging needs in a smarter way. Which use cases make flexibility more predictable, from long-term airport parking to depots, compared with public charging. What it will take to coordinate tens of thousands of EVs at once, including aligning TSO and DSO needs and handling data exchange at scale. Chapters 00:00 Intro: smart charging, AI and the 50% question 02:27 Cedric's origin story: from EV range estimation to grid integration 03:36 What sparked his interest in where mobility meets energy 05:30 Reinforcement learning in the Belgian balancing market 08:54 Negative charging prices and the driver trade-off 10:15 Involving and educating EV drivers 12:36 Co-located batteries and value stacking at charging sites 15:58 ChargePoint Radar break 16:25 The most lucrative ancillary services: aFRR vs the imbalance market 19:17 Treating the EV as a mobility asset first, energy asset second 22:24 What control and planning CPOs need for flexibility revenue 24:40 Airports as virtual power plants, and depot charging 25:36 Next research project: coordinating tens of thousands of EVs 28:56 Innovations to watch in the next 3 to 5 years, including V2G 31:39 Advice for CPOs from a researcher and a long-time EV driver 34:10 Outro and key takeaways Notable quotes "In our simulations, we even got to a negative price, meaning that we were earning to charge. However, at a slight cost, and that cost was not always being able to fully charge the vehicle." - Cedric De Cauwer "Look first at the obvious one, the smart charging one, and do that on more scale. Increasing self-consumption, reducing peaks, peak shaving, arbitrage. These are low-hanging fruits." - Cedric De Cauwer "As an EV driver, I would say reliability. Make your network reliable, make sure that it works all the time. That is what will make you stand out as a CPO." - Cedric De Cauwer About the guest Cedric De Cauwer is a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and a researcher at MOBI, one of Europe's leading electromobility research centres, with a multidisciplinary team of more than 120 specialists. Trained as an electromechanical engineer, he completed his PhD at MOBI on the range estimation of electric vehicles before shifting his focus to the integration of EVs into the electricity grid. His research covers smart charging, vehicle-to-grid, co-located battery storage, flexibility markets and AI-based energy management, including a new project on large-scale coordination of EV charging for grid balancing and congestion management. Cedric De Cauwer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cedric-de-cauwer-8ab22488/ MOBI, Vrije Universiteit Brussel: https://mobi.research.vub.be/ Related listening For the operator side of imbalance-market arbitrage and co-located batteries in Belgium, listen to Episode 56 with Yuso. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • September 22 · 40 min

    Episode 58 – Grid Connections, TCO Parity, and the Truck Charging Buildout – with Voltix

    Public charging, not battery technology, is quietly becoming the biggest obstacle to electrifying Europe's trucking fleet. A truck can't simply pull up to a standard DC charger built for cars; it needs dedicated infrastructure delivering 600 kilowatts, 800 kilowatts, or even a full megawatt, sized to refill a battery inside the driver's mandatory 45-minute regulatory break. Building that infrastructure at scale, along the right corridors, with the right grid capacity, is a very different challenge than rolling out passenger-car charging, and it's one Europe has barely started solving. Louis Dupasquier is uniquely placed to talk through it. He's the CEO of both Voltix and Easy Charge, two charging companies inside the Vinci Group, giving him an end-to-end view that spans small-format AC networks on French streets and the E-Born network in the southeast, all the way up to the megawatt-class truck charging stations Voltix is now building along Europe's highways. Louis's path here runs through the French Ministry of Energy, six years at Vinci deploying thousands of high-power chargers across the French motorway network, and the 2023 founding of Voltix specifically to tackle truck charging. Weeks before this episode went live, Voltix and its parent Vinci Concessions closed close to 90 million euros, alongside Épopée Gestion and ADEME Investissement, to fund the network's next phase. In this conversation, Louis explains why 2025 was the tipping-point year for electric trucks, how France and Germany are each building their own path to TCO parity with diesel, why Germany's fragmented grid landscape makes connections so much harder than in France, and why he thinks Europe's grid connection rules need to change entirely. He also lays out Voltix's rollout plan across five European countries through 2028, and makes the case for why megawatt charging matters even beyond the regulatory break itself. CHAPTERS 0:00 – Intro & episode overview 2:14 – Louis Dupasquier's path: from the French Ministry of Energy to double CEO at Vinci 4:29 – Why Voltix exists: the case for battery-electric trucks over hydrogen and biofuel 6:04 – The 2023 study that defined the bottleneck: public charging for trucks 9:14 – The 2025 tipping point: the Mercedes eActros 600 and real-world proof 13:43 – TCO parity in France vs. Germany, and the coming EU carbon price on road transport 16:21 – Grid bottlenecks: why France is an "El Dorado" and Germany's grid is fragmented 23:06 – What makes Voltix different: Vinci's infrastructure DNA and operational excellence 26:05 – Public charging only: en-route and destination charging for long-haul trucks 29:23 – The rollout plan: first station in Vierzon, and the 2027-2028 roadmap 31:03 – Expanding to five countries: Spain, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden 33:05 – Megawatt charging, MCS vs. CCS, and the future of induction charging 37:51 – Recap, the 90 million euro funding update, and closing thoughts WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Why public charging infrastructure, not battery technology, is the real bottleneck standing between Europe and electric long-haul trucking. Why 2025 was a turning point for the industry, driven by real-world performance data from Mercedes' eActros 600 on long-haul routes. How France has built a policy framework, purchase subsidies, depot-charging installation subsidies, and fiscal over-amortization, that already gets regional electric trucks to TCO parity with diesel. Why Germany's toll exemption for electric trucks makes it just as strong a TCO story as France's, despite a much more fragmented grid to navigate. How the EU's planned expansion of carbon pricing to road transport, expected around 2028, will further tilt the TCO math toward electric. Why Louis argues Europe needs to abandon "first come, first served" grid connections in favor of anticipatory planning, using Vinci Autoroute's own highway grid-connection strategy as a working example. How Voltix is using battery storage as a bridge to open charging stations even where grid connections are limited or delayed. Why Voltix is building every station with both MCS and CCS connectors, and Louis's case for why a full megawatt of charging power could eventually let truck charging happen outside of drivers' regulatory breaks entirely. NOTABLE QUOTES "We cannot charge a truck with a tractor with its trailer on a DC charger for light vehicles. It just doesn't fit. So we need a dedicated infrastructure to charge electric trucks." — Louis Dupasquier "One of the rules, the European mindset we have to change, is the first-arrived, first-served rule. We have to plan the grid connections. We know we will need power everywhere. We should not wait anymore for people to ask for it." — Louis Dupasquier "We are not an energy company. We are not an oil company. We are not an electrician. We are not a gas company. But we are an infrastructure manager." — Louis Dupasquier ABOUT THE GUEST Louis Dupasquier is the CEO of Voltix, the Vinci Concessions company building megawatt-class public charging stations dedicated to electric trucks across Europe, and CEO of Easy Charge, a Vinci Group company operating public high-power charging networks for CPOs in France, including the E-Born network across the southeast of the country. Louis began his career as a civil servant at the French Ministry of Energy, working on nuclear power, offshore wind, and hydroelectric concessions, before joining Vinci roughly six years ago to lead deployment of thousands of high-power chargers across the French highway network starting in 2020. He founded Voltix in 2023 to address what he identifies as the central bottleneck to truck electrification: dedicated, high-power public charging infrastructure along Europe's main freight corridors. Under his leadership, Voltix has secured two rounds of EU CEF-AFIF funding and, most recently, a near-90-million-euro investment from Vinci Concessions, Épopée Gestion, and ADEME Investissement, with its first station set to open in Vierzon, France in autumn 2026. Connect with Louis Dupasquier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisdupasquier/ Voltix: https://www.voltix-charging.com/ RELATED LISTENING For more on the grid-connection challenges facing truck fleet electrification, listen to Episode 51 with Martin of INTERFACE Nordics, who dug into the same grid-constraint and depot-charging communication problems Louis raises here, from a Nordic market perspective. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • September 16 · 34 min

    Episode 57 - Building the Open Smart Charging Ecosystem: 4 Voices From icnc2026 Berlin

    Summary EV charging infrastructure has largely solved the problem it set out to solve — the chargers work, the networks exist, drivers can find a plug. But at ICNC26 in Berlin this September, the industry's largest annual gathering built its entire theme around what comes next: "Collaboration at Scale: Establishing the Open Smart Charging Ecosystem." The premise is that interoperability can no longer stop at plugs and protocols; it has to extend into smart charging, grid data, and the deeper convergence of the energy and mobility sectors. In this special multi-guest episode, recorded live on the ICNC26 show floor at Berlin's Tempelhof Airport, Christophe sits down with four people building pieces of that open ecosystem from very different vantage points. Joakim Arvidsson, co-founder of Peak Energy, brings a sales and solution-development background from the IT and security industries to the unglamorous but critical problem of grid cost transparency. Bradford Crist, CEO and co-founder of ChargeMate, spent a decade in EV charging — including leading DC fast-charging product development at Volta — before building an AI support layer for drivers and CPOs. Oumaima Bounouadar, co-founder and CEO of OCPP Lab, brings a data science background to a problem she lived firsthand: the slow, manual, physical-hardware-dependent grind of testing charging interoperability. And Jaap Burger, an independent EV grid-integration consultant, has spent years translating between EV charging innovation and the regulatory and policy world that governs it. Together, these four conversations trace a single throughline: the industry has moved past "does it work" and into "does it pay off, does it scale, and does it actually talk to itself" — cost, revenue, testing rigor, and regulatory collaboration, all in service of the same open ecosystem ICNC26 put at the center of its stage. What you'll learn Why grid connection fees and transfer costs are a genuine "jungle" — scattered manually across individual DSO websites with no standardized definitions of peak, average, or seasonal pricing, according to Joakim Arvidsson. How the EV charging market's priorities have shifted in distinct phases: first hardware rollout speed, then reliability and user experience, and now — per Arvidsson — cost and profitability. Why Bradford Crist believes AI-driven driver support should be judged on revenue recovery and retention, not just cost reduction, which he calls "cost of entry" rather than a real differentiator. What ChargeMate's new partnership with Percepta (a Ford tech joint venture) adds to its AI-plus-human support model for large automotive and charging providers. Why Oumaima Bounouadar and her co-founder built OCPP Lab's continuous interoperability testing platform after experiencing firsthand how slow and resource-intensive manual OCPP/OCPI testing was — up to 30 minutes per basic scenario, requiring a physical charger, an EV, and two specialized engineers. Why component-level testing (unit and integration tests) isn't enough on its own — drivers experience the full charging journey end-to-end, and many real issues only surface when systems interact. Why Jaap Burger sees a widening gap between technical maturity and regulatory conversation: charge point operators are constrained by grid capacity but rarely bring the resulting flexibility-value opportunity directly to regulators and DSOs. Why real-world vehicle-to-grid deployments are still earlier-stage than expected two years ago, even as unidirectional smart charging has become close to a default assumption in depot and HGV charging business cases. Notable quotes "I think it's a hidden cost that not anyone understands. You have the utility cost, the kilowatt hours, and then you have the grid cost — the connection fee, the transfer fees. And the grid owners can define them as they want." — Joakim Arvidsson, Peak Energy "There's a lot of people able to offer lower costs with AI tools. That's cost of entry. What we're really focused on is providing an experience that recovers revenue and retains customers." — Bradford Crist, ChargeMate "Ultimately the driver experiences the entire charging journey, not just an isolated component — and many issues only appear when those systems start interacting." — Oumaima Bounouadar, OCPP Lab About the guests Joakim Arvidsson is co-founder of Peak Energy, which helps charge point operators and CPMS providers understand and control the hidden costs of grid connections — including capacity fees and peak charges that vary widely and opaquely across distribution system operators. Arvidsson brings a background in solution sales from the IT and security industries, applying that same "translate a complex technical cost into something a business can act on" approach to grid economics for the EV charging sector. Bradford Crist is CEO and co-founder of ChargeMate, an AI-powered support platform for EV drivers and charge point operators. He spent the last decade working across the EV charging industry, including several years as a product manager at Volta Charging leading DC fast-charging, payments, and mobile app development, and earlier experience with Hubject during its US market entry. Crist founded ChargeMate after seeing firsthand how even highly "online" charging networks still generated significant friction at the point of use. Oumaima Bounouadar is co-founder and CEO of OCPP Lab, a Paris-based (Station F) startup building a continuous interoperability testing platform for the EV charging ecosystem. With a mathematics background and five years of experience as a data scientist — including at an e-mobility operator, where she first encountered the problem she'd later build a company around — Bounouadar co-founded OCPP Lab roughly ten months ago to let companies simulate and test integrations across protocols like OCPP and OCPI without needing physical hardware for every test. Jaap Burger is an independent consultant focused on EV grid integration — smart and bidirectional charging viewed through a combined regulatory, policy, innovation, and user-facing lens. His work centers on translating between what's happening in policy and regulation and what's happening at the leading edge of EV charging innovation, helping each side understand what's realistically possible today and in the near future. Episode chapters 00:00 — Welcome & episode intro 02:25 — Joakim Arvidsson (Peak Energy): The grid cost jungle 08:24 — Bradford Crist (ChargeMate): AI support built for revenue, not just cost 16:29 — Oumaima Bounouadar (OCPP Lab): Testing the full charging journey 23:51 — Jaap Burger: Bridging the CPO–regulator gap 32:03 — Wrap-up & key takeaways Runtime: ~34 minutes Links Joakim Arvidsson: linkedin.com/in/joakim-arvidsson-ab0135 Bradford Crist: linkedin.com/in/bradford-crist-787a5519 Oumaima Bounouadar: linkedin.com/in/oumaima-bounouadar-a31221198 | OCPP Lab: www.ocpplab.com Jaap Burger: linkedin.com/in/jaapburger Related listening For more on the regulatory and DSO side of the flexibility conversation Jaap Burger raises here, check out our episodes with Julia Hildermeier, Zsuzsanna Pató, and Jan Rosenow of RAP (Regulatory Assistance Project), three separate deep dives into grid congestion, smart charging economics, and time-of-use tariff policy across Europe and the UK. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • September 7 · 34 min

    Episode 56 - The Duck Curve, the Canyon Curve, and the Business Case for BESS at CPO Sites

    Summary Grid connections rarely deliver the full power a CPO has actually contracted for. Ask a distribution grid operator for enough capacity to run ten fast chargers at rated power, and the answer is almost always less than what's on paper — and reinforcing a grid connection takes years and billions of euros, while integrating a battery takes months. That mismatch in timelines is why co-located battery energy storage systems (BESS) are quickly moving from a nice-to-have to a near-default requirement for serious EV charging infrastructure. In this episode, Christophe Lephilibert sits down with Michel Verschuere, founder and managing director of Yuso, a Belgian balance service provider (BSP) that has grown into a major flexibility player across Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and the Baltic states. A physicist by training who has been trading electricity since 2003, Michel built Yuso in 2012 around the idea that batteries and other flexible assets should actively participate in the energy market, not just sit idle as backup. Today Yuso manages roughly 500 megawatts of grid-scale flexibility — and an increasing share of that flexibility now sits behind EV chargers. The conversation covers why the EV charging industry's usual playbook for flexibility revenue doesn't fully apply to charging sites, why the "duck curve" utilities have talked about for years is turning into a "canyon curve" in solar-heavy markets, and what's actually driving reliable value for charge point operators (CPOs) today. Michel also walks through a live, named example of how this works in practice: a three-way partnership between FLEXECHARGE, Yuso, and battery hardware provider Intercell, deployed on a real Q8 Electric site in Belgium - with FLEXECHARGE named as one of Yuso's own certified energy management system (EMS) partners. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why grid congestion, not charger hardware cost, is the real reason co-located BESS is becoming essential for CPOs, and why grid reinforcement timelines make batteries the faster path to more usable capacity What the "duck curve" is, why growing solar penetration is turning it into a "canyon curve" in markets like California, and what that means for when a CPO's battery should charge and discharge Why classic ancillary services like FCR and aFRR are often a poor fit for CPO sites specifically — they're contracted directly with transmission system operators (TSOs) and priced in kilowatts, the exact resource a charging site can least afford to commit away from serving drivers Where real, reliable flexibility value exists today for charge point operators: peak shaving against grid connection limits, day-ahead price optimization, and capturing swings in the imbalance market (Belgium has recorded imbalance prices as extreme as -15,000 EUR/MWh) Why "full-stack" flexibility revenue pitches are, in Michel's words, usually "over-promised and under-delivered" How a real three-way partner stack actually operates on a live site: FLEXECHARGE as the energy management system, Yuso as the balance service provider reading the market, and Intercell supplying the battery hardware What Michel recommends any CPO check first before trying to monetize a battery: whether it can realistically close the site's kilowatt gap, correct sizing, and choosing the right combination of partners Notable Quotes "Three-letter abbreviations do not lower an invoice. The actual EUR delta does." "We have our own internal certification scheme, and this is why FLEXeCHARGE is one of the certified partners on our website." — Michel Verschuere About the Guest Michel Verschuere is the founder and managing director of Yuso, a Belgian balance service provider and energy flexibility company he launched in 2012. A physicist by background, Michel has been active in European electricity trading since 2003. Yuso today manages approximately 500 megawatts of grid-scale flexibility across Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and the Baltic states. Connect with Michel: linkedin.com/in/michel-verschuere-28abb56 Learn more about Yuso: yuso.com/nl Related listening: for more on CPOs integrating battery storage at scale, check out our earlier conversation with Q8 Electric and Intercell on deploying co-located BESS across Benelux fast-charging sites. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • August 19 · 36 min

    Episode 55 – How ORLEN Is Scaling Its EV Charging Network across 7 markets

    How do you transform a major fuel-retail network into a scalable EV charging business? Marvin Bechtel from ORLEN shares how the company is expanding its EV charging network while navigating site selection, grid constraints, technical complexity and changing customer expectations. The conversation explores what it takes to move from individual charging sites to a standardised, reliable and customer-centric network - and why charging speed alone will not differentiate tomorrow’s leading Charge Point Operators. Episode summary ORLEN operates approximately 3,500 service stations across seven European countries, including around 600 in Germany. Its ambition is to evolve from a traditional fuel retailer into an integrated energy and mobility provider, with EV charging as a central pillar of that transformation. Marvin explains how ORLEN approaches charging locations across Germany and Eastern Europe, from existing service stations and retail destinations to dedicated high-power charging hubs. He also shares why selecting the right location remains one of the most important factors in building a commercially successful charging network. As the rollout grows, the challenges change. Managing a handful of chargers is very different from operating hundreds of charging points across multiple locations, technical environments and grid operators. Standardisation therefore becomes critical- helping teams accelerate deployment, simplify commissioning and reduce operational complexity. The discussion also looks ahead to battery energy storage systems, solar integration, dynamic pricing and smarter energy management. As charging speeds become increasingly similar across networks, Marvin believes convenience, reliability, transparent pricing and the overall customer experience will become much stronger differentiators. What you will learn How ORLEN is transforming from a fuel retailer into an integrated energy and mobility provider What EV charging means for the future of traditional service stations Why prime locations remain essential to charging-network utilisation and profitability How EV adoption and grid readiness differ across Germany and Eastern Europe What changes when a CPO moves from individual projects to a large charging network Why site selection should not be driven solely by the easiest grid connection How grid limitations and physical space affect charging-site development Why standardisation can accelerate rollout and reduce operational complexity How failed commissioning can delay an entire charging site How FLEXBOX and the HARMON-E platform support a repeatable operational approach Where battery storage, solar power, load management and dynamic pricing could add value Why charging speed alone will become less of a competitive differentiator What may separate successful Charge Point Operators from the rest over the next three to five years About the guest Marvin Bechtel is responsible for ORLEN’s e-mobility business in the German market. After joining ORLEN in 2017, he worked in communications and public relations before moving into business development, where he helped develop the company’s mobile payment application for fuel and car-wash services. In 2023, Marvin took on responsibility for building and scaling ORLEN’s EV charging activities in Germany. His work covers charging-network strategy, site development, operational excellence and the creation of a consistent customer experience across ORLEN Charge locations. Connect with Marvin Bechtel on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marvin-bechtel/ Key topics EV charging infrastructure · CPO strategy · charging-network scalability · ORLEN Charge · service-station transformation · charging-site selection · grid capacity · DNO requirements · charging-hub operations · commissioning · standardisation · FLEXBOX · HARMON-E · load management · battery energy storage systems · dynamic EV charging prices · customer experience · Germany · Eastern Europe Resources Check out the intro webinar about the FLEXBOX here Support the Charge Point Podcast If you found this conversation valuable, share the episode with a colleague or someone working in EV charging and e-mobility. Please also follow the Charge Point Podcast, leave a review and give the show a five-star rating. Your support helps more people discover the podcast and join the conversation about the future of EV charging. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • August 13 · 28 min

    Episode 54 – How Cheap Batteries Are Changing EV Charging Infrastructure - with Ryan Fisher, BloombergNEF

    Cheap batteries are starting to reshape the economics of EV charging infrastructure. In this episode of the Charge Point Podcast, Christophe Lephilibert speaks with Ryan Fisher, Head of Charging Infrastructure at BloombergNEF, about why co-located Battery Energy Storage Systems — or BESS — are becoming increasingly relevant for fast-charging sites, truck charging, megawatt charging and grid-constrained locations. The conversation builds on BloombergNEF’s report, How Cheap Batteries Are Helping EV Charging Scale, to which FLEXECHARGE contributed data. Ryan explains why battery storage is moving from a niche pilot topic to a serious infrastructure tool for Charge Point Operators, especially as battery costs fall, grid fees rise, and charging sites need to deliver more power. Together, Christophe and Ryan discuss peak-demand charges, grid connection constraints, energy arbitrage, subsidies, truck charging, BYD’s battery-backed megawatt charging rollout, and the implications of BloombergNEF’s 2026 Electric Vehicle Outlook. The key message: co-located BESS will not make sense for every charging site tomorrow — but every serious CPO should now understand where batteries fit into their rollout strategy. Guest Ryan Fisher Head of Charging Infrastructure, BloombergNEF Ryan Fisher leads BloombergNEF’s charging infrastructure research. His work connects the electrification of transport with the wider energy system, covering charging infrastructure, battery storage, power markets, grid constraints and the future of EV adoption. In this episode, Ryan brings a global BloombergNEF perspective on how cheap batteries, grid fees and higher charging powers are changing the fast-charging business case. What you will learn In this episode, you will learn: Why battery storage is becoming more relevant for EV fast-charging infrastructure How cheaper batteries can help CPOs deal with grid connection constraints Why peak-demand charges and grid fees are becoming critical to the charging business case How co-located BESS can help unlock sites that were previously too expensive or too difficult to build Why truck charging and megawatt charging may accelerate battery deployment How China, Europe and the US differ in battery costs, subsidies and tariff structures Why ancillary services and flexibility markets are promising, but still early for most CPOs What BloombergNEF’s 2026 EV Outlook says about EV growth, electricity demand and future charging needs Why future charging networks may need to think more like distributed energy asset operators Key topics covered Why this report, and why now? Ryan explains why BloombergNEF decided to investigate the role of batteries in EV charging infrastructure. Overcapacity in the battery market has pushed storage costs down, while CPOs are facing more questions around grid access, grid fees and whether charging infrastructure can scale fast enough. BloombergNEF tracked around 800 projects where batteries are already being used with EV charging infrastructure — a striking sign that co-located BESS is no longer only an experimental topic. The bottleneck is shifting from chargers to energy For years, fast charging was mainly discussed in terms of charger deployment, location, utilization and uptime. Today, the bottleneck is increasingly about energy: available grid capacity, power availability, grid fees and the ability to deliver higher charging speeds. This becomes even more important as EVs become capable of higher charging power and as commercial vehicles bring much larger loads to charging sites. The business case for co-located BESS Ryan breaks down where the value of BESS can come from: avoiding or delaying grid upgrades reducing peak-demand charges enabling higher charging power on constrained grid connections shifting electricity consumption to cheaper hours supporting truck charging and large fleet operations preparing for future flexibility and ancillary service revenues But the business case is highly market-specific. Tariff structures, electricity prices, utilization, subsidies and grid constraints all determine whether BESS makes financial sense. Peak-demand charges and grid fees One of the most important insights from the episode is that grid fees vary significantly by country, region and tariff structure. Some markets have peak-demand charges, some have time-of-use grid fees, and some have both. Ryan explains that in certain markets, peak-demand charges are being reduced or temporarily removed to support charging infrastructure rollout. But the long-term challenge remains: how do you scale charging infrastructure without creating unsustainable grid costs? Truck charging and megawatt charging Truck charging is one of the strongest use cases for co-located BESS because the energy demand is much larger than passenger-car charging. A single truck can have a battery of several hundred kilowatt-hours, and high-power charging for fleets can quickly create major grid requirements. The discussion also touches on BYD’s battery-backed megawatt charging rollout in China, which could significantly influence the global average size and architecture of battery-supported charging sites. Can cheap batteries change where charging sites are built? Ryan’s answer is clear: yes. If battery costs continue to fall — or if operators can access grants and subsidies — BESS can make new types of charging locations viable. This is particularly relevant for existing fuel retail sites, depots, and high-traffic locations where the commercial case is strong but the grid connection is weak. With batteries, a site that previously lacked sufficient grid power may still be able to offer high-power charging. BloombergNEF’s 2026 EV Outlook The conversation also connects BESS with the broader findings from BloombergNEF’s 2026 Electric Vehicle Outlook. Ryan highlights growth in Europe, developments in Southeast Asia, progress in heavy-duty trucking, and emerging questions around robotaxis. The outlook also looks at electricity demand from EVs and the grid investment needed to support transport electrification. One important point: EVs will become a meaningful driver of grid investment, but they are only one part of a wider picture that also includes aging grids, data centers, general electricity demand growth and electrification in other sectors. The future charging business case Ryan explains that the future competitive landscape for CPOs will not only be about who has the best location or the most chargers. It will also be about: who can deliver higher charging powers who can manage electricity costs who can optimize grid capacity who can integrate batteries effectively who can combine charging with retail, amenities or other site-level business models A good charging site today could be overtaken tomorrow by a better-located, better-optimized, higher-power and more energy-efficient competitor. Key takeaway Co-located BESS is not a universal solution for every charging site. But cheap batteries, grid constraints, higher charging power and the rise of truck charging are changing the EV charging business case. For many CPOs, batteries will become a strategic tool to reduce costs, unlock constrained sites, improve charging performance and prepare for future flexibility markets. The smartest operators will not wait until every business case is obvious. They will start understanding where BESS fits, which sites are suitable, and how to build the technical stack needed to scale when the economics become attractive. Listen to the full episode Listen to the full conversation with Ryan Fisher from BloombergNEF to understand how cheap batteries are changing EV charging infrastructure — and what this means for CPOs, fleet operators, truck charging, grid constraints and the future of fast charging. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a colleague working in EV charging, batteries, fleet electrification or energy infrastructure. You can also support the Charge Point Podcast by leaving a review and giving us a five-star rating on your preferred podcast platform. Resources mentioned BloombergNEF report: How Cheap Batteries Are Helping EV Charging Scale BloombergNEF Electric Vehicle Outlook 2026: Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • July 8 · 43 min

    Episode 53 - Grid Constraints, Batteries & AI: What Power2Drive 2026 Revealed

    Recorded live on the showfloor at Power2Drive Europe 2026 in Munich, this special episode of The Charge Point Podcast captures the technologies, business models, and conversations shaping the next phase of EV charging. Across seven short interviews with experts from Polarium, ADS-TEC Energy, Sungrow, FLEXECHARGE, KEBA, and Lumina, one message comes through clearly: EV charging is moving beyond rapid infrastructure rollout. The next phase is about smarter operations, better use of constrained grid connections, battery-backed business models, depot and truck charging, energy market integration, and more intelligent software. From distributed battery storage and battery-buffered charging to FLEXBOX, C&I storage, cable theft prevention, local energy management, VPPs, AI agents, and ecosystem collaboration, this episode offers a snapshot of where the EV charging industry is heading next. Episode summary Power2Drive 2026 showed an industry entering a more mature phase. For years, the central question was how fast charging networks could be deployed. Today, the conversation is shifting. CPOs, hardware providers, battery companies, EMS platforms, and software players are increasingly focused on profitability, resilience, operational intelligence, and making the most of the grid connections already available. In this showfloor episode, Christophe speaks with seven guests to understand what stood out at Power2Drive 2026. The conversations highlight three major themes: grid constraints as a defining design challenge, battery energy storage as a strategic commercial asset, and the growing convergence between EV charging, solar, storage, grid services, software, and AI. The result is a practical, on-the-ground view of the next charging playbook: optimise sites, orchestrate assets, unlock new value streams, and collaborate across the energy ecosystem. What you will learn Why grid constraints are now shaping how charging sites are designed, deployed, and operated. How battery energy storage can help CPOs avoid or delay grid upgrades, increase charging capacity, reduce peak demand costs, and unlock additional revenue streams. Why BESS is moving from a “nice to have” to a strategic lever for site profitability, especially in depot and truck charging. How battery-buffered charging can help operators deploy high-power charging on limited grid connections. Why C&I storage, PV integration, and energy market participation are becoming increasingly relevant for EV charging operators. How local energy management can coordinate chargers, batteries, solar PV, and grid constraints in real time. Why depot and truck charging were among the hot topics at Power2Drive 2026. How charger reliability, service, and cable theft prevention are becoming critical issues for logistics and public charging operators. Why AI is moving from a broad buzzword to practical agents that can help operations teams manage EV chargers and energy assets. Why the future of EV charging will depend on stronger collaboration between hardware, software, batteries, solar, grid services, and energy management providers. Guests featured in this episode Håkan Tezcanli, Polarium Håkan shares the battery and distributed energy storage perspective. He explains why batteries have become central to solving grid and energy challenges, how distributed BESS can support EV charging, and how aggregated battery sites can contribute to VPP models and new revenue opportunities. Sascha Koenig, ADS-TEC Energy Sascha discusses battery-buffered charging and how it can help operators deploy on low-voltage or constrained grid connections. He also explains why truck and depot charging are becoming major growth areas, and why batteries are increasingly essential when the power and energy requirements of fleets increase. Miguel Lojan Jaramillo, Sungrow Miguel brings the C&I storage and solar perspective. He talks about weak grid connections, electricity prices, peak charges, PV integration, PowerStack, technical support, after-sales service, and the growing role of ecosystem partnerships when customers want to connect EV chargers, PV, ESS, and energy market opportunities. Kasper Daugaard, FLEXECHARGE Kasper reflects on the shift from charger deployment and land-grabbing to energy optimisation and site profitability. He introduces FLEXBOX as a local energy controller that balances chargers, batteries, solar, and the grid in real time, while helping operators maximise charging capacity without exceeding grid limits. Torsten Freytag, KEBA Torsten takes the conversation into transport and logistics. He explains why reliability and service are critical for depot charging, why partner ecosystems matter in early-stage depot electrification, and how KEBA is approaching AI-supported cable theft prevention. He also discusses high-power DC charging and liquid-cooled cables for trucks. Mikkel Weikop & Andreas Sønderbo Patscheider, Lumina Mikkel and Andreas discuss how the AI conversation is moving from general hype to practical agents. They explain how operations teams could build and deploy AI agents to operate EV chargers and energy assets, and why e-mobility, solar, storage, software, and adjacent energy sectors are becoming increasingly intertwined. Key themes from Power2Drive 2026 1. Grid constraints are becoming the central design challenge Charging operators are no longer only asking how many chargers they can deploy. They are asking how to maximise the value of the grid connection they already have. This changes everything: site design, hardware choices, energy management, battery strategy, and long-term business models. 2. Batteries are becoming commercial assets, not just technical fixes BESS can help solve grid constraints, but the bigger story is value stacking. Batteries can support charging capacity, peak shaving, load shifting, PV optimisation, arbitrage, flexibility services, and VPP participation. For CPOs, the battery is increasingly becoming part of the business model. 3. The industry is becoming one connected operating system EV charging, solar, batteries, grid services, local controllers, EMS platforms, AI, and depot operations can no longer be treated as separate industries. The most interesting solutions are emerging at the intersections — and that makes partnerships more important than ever. Key takeaway Power2Drive 2026 revealed an industry moving from rollout to optimisation. The next winners in EV charging will not only be the companies that build fast. They will be the ones that operate smart: making better use of constrained grid connections, integrating batteries and flexibility markets, coordinating assets in real time, improving operational resilience, and building stronger partnerships across the energy ecosystem. Listen to this episode if you are interested in EV charging, CPO strategy, Power2Drive, grid constraints, battery energy storage, BESS value stacking, depot charging, truck charging, public fast charging, local energy management, flexibility markets, VPPs, C&I storage, PV integration, cable theft prevention, AI agents, energy orchestration, and the future of profitable EV charging operations. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • June 18 · 31 min

    Episode 52 - Beyond Kilowatt-Hours: Flexibility as the Next Value Pool for CPOs

    EV charging is no longer only about selling kilowatt-hours. As grid capacity becomes tighter, electricity prices more volatile, and flexibility markets more mature, Charge Point Operators have a new strategic question to answer: can charging infrastructure become a flexible energy asset? In this episode of the Charge Point Podcast, Christophe speaks with Lars Herre, Flexibility Portfolio Lead at Fortum, about demand response, flexibility, V2G, batteries, and the role CPOs can play in the future energy system. Lars brings a rare combination of technical depth and market perspective. His background spans electrical engineering, power systems research, energy market modelling, and venture-building around aggregation and EV flexibility. In the conversation, he explains how demand response can help customers electrify while preventing the grid from running into limits — and why CPOs should start preparing now, even if the business case does not always feel urgent today. Together, we explore what it means to move beyond kilowatt-hours. For CPOs, flexibility can become a way to reduce energy costs, manage peak loads, delay or avoid grid upgrades, integrate batteries and local renewables, and eventually participate in flexibility markets or Virtual Power Plants. But this is not just a technology story. It is also about regulation, forecasting, standardisation, customer experience, and knowing how much flexibility can be activated without disappointing drivers. Lars also shares his view on what has changed in recent years: greater awareness of electricity price volatility, the rise of flexibility players, the growing relevance of dynamic tariffs, regulation that is ambitious but often slow in implementation, and the fact that V2G is increasingly moving from vision to real-world partnerships. What you will learn In this episode, you will learn: Why demand response is becoming increasingly relevant for CPOs How a charging site can become a flexible energy asset Why selling kilowatt-hours may not be enough as the market matures How flexibility can help manage grid constraints and peak demand Why driver experience must remain the first priority What role batteries, V2G and Virtual Power Plants could play in CPO profitability Why pilots should be designed with scale, standardisation and automation in mind How CPOs can prepare today for a more grid-interactive future Key topics discussed Demand response and EV charging Flexibility as a new value pool for CPOs Grid constraints and electrification Dynamic tariffs and energy price volatility Battery Energy Storage Systems at charging sites Vehicle-to-Grid and bidirectional charging Virtual Power Plants and aggregation Flexibility markets and reserve markets The balance between monetisation and driver experience Regulation, market access and implementation barriers What CPOs need to future-proof their charging portfolios Guest Lars Herre, Flexibility Portfolio Lead at Fortum, formerly part of the Hiven.energy team, a Fortum venture. Lars works at the intersection of electrification, power systems and flexibility. His mission is to help customers electrify while avoiding unnecessary pressure on the grid - turning uncontrollable loads into flexible assets that can create value for customers and support the wider energy system. Connect with him now: linkedin.com/in/larsherre/ Why this episode matters for CPOs For many CPOs, profitability is still closely tied to utilisation, location, pricing and operational efficiency. But the next layer of value may come from how intelligently charging assets interact with the grid. Flexibility will not replace the core business of charging drivers, but it can strengthen it. It can help CPOs reduce costs, improve site resilience, make better use of limited grid capacity, and open new revenue opportunities. The key message from this episode is clear: CPOs do not need to capture every flexibility revenue stream tomorrow — but they do need to build the capability today. The future CPO will not only operate chargers. It will operate intelligent, flexible, grid-interactive assets. Listen now Tune in to Episode 52 of the Charge Point Podcast to understand why flexibility could become one of the most important value pools for the next generation of CPOs. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • June 4 · 42 min

    Episode 51 - INTERFACE Nordics: Batteries, Flexibility and the Next Phase of Charging

    Recorded just after INTERFACE Nordics at the FLEXECHARGE HQ in Copenhagen, this special episode brings together five short interviews with leading voices from across the EV charging and energy ecosystem. The Nordics are often seen as the future of electrification: high EV adoption, clean power, ambitious CPOs and fast-moving innovation. But a new challenge is now emerging fast: grid constraints. How do we keep scaling charging when capacity is no longer something CPOs can take for granted? What role will batteries play? Are flexibility markets becoming a real opportunity? And what happens when electric trucks start putting MW-scale pressure on depots, corridors and local grids? In this episode, Christophe speaks with five guests who each bring a different perspective on the next phase of charging. Guests Daniel Bogdanoski, Energy Solutions Product Manager, OKQ8 Wulf Schlachter, CEO & Founder of DXBe Management Jeppe Arnsdorf Pedersen, Product Owner for Ancillary Services, Clever Jacob Ribergaard Vinther, Senior Business Consultant, Cerius-Radius Martin Moos, eMobility consultant and founder of Elevathors What you will learn Why the Nordic charging market is moving from deployment to optimization Why grid constraints are becoming a strategic challenge, even in power-rich markets How CPOs are starting to think about charging sites as energy assets, not just hardware locations Why BESS can support grid access, charging performance, peak shaving and new revenue streams What DSOs wish CPOs understood about connection timelines, planning and early dialogue What is actually monetizable today in flexibility and ancillary services — and why it is still complex Why heavy-duty charging is not just “bigger EV charging”, but a new operational challenge How depot charging, route planning, driver breaks, grid capacity and software orchestration need to work together Why collaboration between CPOs, DSOs, TSOs, BESS OEMs, flexibility specialists, software providers and fleet operators will define the next phase of the market Episode summary The core message of this episode is clear: EV charging is entering a new phase. The first phase was about building networks, adding chargers and creating coverage. That work continues — but it is no longer enough. As utilization grows, grid capacity tightens and heavy-duty electrification accelerates, the industry needs to think differently. Charging sites are becoming energy systems. Batteries, smart charging, flexibility, grid integration and software orchestration are moving from future topics to operational necessities. From Wulf Schlachter, we hear how the market is shifting from a start-up phase to a scale-up phase, where profitability and energy management matter more than ever. From Daniel Bogdanoski, we get the CPO perspective: batteries and smart energy solutions are not only about grid constraints. They are also about delivering the charging experience customers expect. From Jacob Ribergaard Vinther, we hear the DSO reality: the issue is not willingness to connect new customers, but time, capacity and planning. Early dialogue matters. From Jeppe Arnsdorf Pedersen, we dive into ancillary services and flexibility: the opportunity is real, but it requires scale, strong IT systems, regulation awareness and careful protection of the customer experience. And from Martin Moos, we look at heavy-duty charging, where electrification brings a much deeper layer of complexity: depots, routes, schedules, driver breaks, grid capacity, software and energy cost all need to be coordinated. Key themes Grid constraints and the Nordic Grid Paradox Batteries in EV charging infrastructure Flexibility markets and ancillary services From CPOs to energy operators DSO-CPO collaboration Heavy-duty and depot charging Customer experience and charging reliability Software orchestration and energy optimization Future perspective The Nordics are still ahead in electrification. But being ahead also means meeting the constraints first. That is what makes this region so interesting. The solutions now being tested in Denmark, Sweden and Norway — batteries, flexible grid connections, VPPs, depot orchestration and closer DSO-CPO collaboration — may become part of the blueprint for the rest of Europe. As charging power increases and electric trucks scale, the winners will not only be the companies that deploy the most hardware. They will be the ones that can orchestrate energy, grid capacity, customer experience and market value in real time. Learn more To go deeper into INTERFACE, read more about the event, watch the video interviews, and get access to the recorded keynotes - go here Watch the webinar: “The Power of Co-Located Batteries — Unlocking the Full Revenue Potential” - link here Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • May 19 · 42 min

    Episode 50 - Battery-Backed Charging: How Q8 Electric Is Scaling Beyond Grid Limits

    Episode summary Fast charging is entering a new phase. For many CPOs, the challenge is no longer simply installing chargers — it is securing enough grid capacity, keeping rollout speed high, and delivering a reliable charging experience even when the grid is constrained. In this episode of the Charge Point Podcast, Christophe speaks with Geert de Mil from Q8 Electric and Joost de Meester from Intercel about why co-located battery energy storage systems are becoming a structural part of fast-charging infrastructure. Q8 Electric is scaling towards 500 high-power charging locations across the Benelux, and as Geert explains, the traditional model of “connect chargers to the grid and go” no longer works at scale. Grid connection lead times, limited capacity, and commercially attractive locations without sufficient power are forcing CPOs to rethink site architecture. Together with Joost, we explore why batteries are no longer just a nice-to-have, but a critical enabler for fast charging: helping sites reduce dependence on large grid connections, buffer peak demand, improve reliability, and prepare for future use cases such as arbitrage and flexibility markets. The conversation also goes beyond the business case. We discuss the technical complexity of integrating chargers, batteries, smart meters, grid constraints, and an energy management system in real time — and why the real value of BESS comes from making the whole system work together without compromising the driver experience. What you will learn In this episode, you will learn: Why grid constraints are becoming one of the biggest barriers to fast-charging rollout. How Q8 Electric is using co-located batteries to support its expansion across the Benelux. Why batteries are shifting from “nice-to-have” to structural infrastructure for CPOs. How BESS can help reduce the size of required grid connections while maintaining charging performance. Why power boosting is often the first and most important use case for battery-backed charging. How peak shaving, dynamic load management, arbitrage, and future ancillary services fit into the value stack. Why the integration challenge is not the battery itself, but the orchestration between the car, charger, battery, grid, and energy management system. What can go wrong if response times, restart logic, and control signals are not properly managed. How Q8 Electric thinks about customer experience, uptime, predictability, and ROI. Why truck charging and megawatt charging will make batteries even more relevant in the coming years. How future fast-charging sites may evolve into intelligent energy hubs. Key topics discussed From fuel sites to energy hubs Geert explains how Q8 Electric emerged as part of Q8’s broader mobility transition, and why fast charging now requires a much more sophisticated site architecture than simply installing chargers. The grid as the breaking point As Q8 Electric scales towards hundreds of HPC locations, grid availability has become a key constraint. The best commercial locations are not always the locations with enough power, which makes batteries essential to unlock rollout opportunities. Why BESS is becoming structural For Q8 Electric, batteries are no longer optional. They help deliver predictable, reliable, fast charging while reducing stress on the grid and making the operator a more responsible grid user. The Intercel perspective Joost shares how Intercel sees the market evolving, why battery demand around EV charging is accelerating, and how European assembly, service, and integration capabilities matter in complex infrastructure projects. The real integration challenge The episode highlights why EV charging is more demanding than many other BESS use cases. A charging session can stop suddenly, power flows change instantly, and the system must react in milliseconds to keep the site stable. Sizing and business case Geert explains how Q8 Electric learned to size batteries together with Intercel, using simulations to balance battery capacity, charger demand, grid limits, and future expansion needs. Value stacking - but with priorities The discussion covers power boosting, peak shaving, dynamic load management, arbitrage, and future flexibility markets. But the priority is clear: customer experience comes first. The battery must support fast charging, not interfere with it. The future of battery-backed charging The guests look ahead to more battery-backed HPC sites, truck charging, megawatt charging, and public energy hubs where grid investment, charging infrastructure, and storage are planned more strategically. Featured guests Geert de Mil, Q8 Electric Geert leads charging technology, systems, and insights at Q8 Electric, focusing on everything behind the charger: site architecture, hardware, digital systems, monitoring, energy management, and the infrastructure needed to make fast charging reliable at scale. Joost de Meester, Intercel Joost is commercially responsible for part of Intercel’s business. With a background in sales, business development, and previous experience at Tesla working on charging infrastructure, he now focuses on helping customers deploy battery systems for the energy transition. Memorable insight “The future of fast charging will not only be about adding more chargers. It will be about building smarter sites — where chargers, batteries, grid connections, and energy management systems work together as one integrated energy system.” Recommended resources Watch the webinar: “The Power of Co-Located Batteries — Unlocking the Full Revenue Potential” - link here Interested in the solution side of the story? Listen to Episode 43 of the podcast where Christophe discusses with Topias Koskela from Enico, a leading BESS OEM from Finland - link here Keywords EV charging, fast charging, high-power charging, HPC, BESS, battery energy storage, co-located batteries, Q8 Electric, Intercel, energy management system, grid constraints, peak shaving, power boosting, EV charging infrastructure, charge point operators, CPO, truck charging, megawatt charging, flexibility markets, energy hubs. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • May 7 · 29 min

    Episode 49 – Grid Congestion Decoded: What Every CPO Needs to Understand Now

    Summary In this episode of the Charge Point Podcast, Christophe sits down with Maarten Staats from Enexis and GridCapacityMaps.eu to unpack one of the most pressing challenges facing EV charging infrastructure today: grid congestion. As EV adoption accelerates across Europe, more Charge Point Operators are encountering limited grid capacity, delayed connection approvals, and uncertainty around available power for new charging sites. Maarten explains how congestion actually works in practice, why the Netherlands is experiencing these issues so early, and what this means for the future deployment of EV charging infrastructure. Which topics do we explore? 🔌 What grid congestion actually means ⚡ The difference between grid congestion and transport scarcity 🗺️ How DSOs calculate and allocate grid capacity 🇳🇱 Why the Netherlands has become an early stress test for electrification 🚧 Why grid reinforcement projects take so much time 📈 How increasing electrification impacts grid planning 🔋 The role of flexible capacity agreements and smarter grid usage 🏗️ What CPOs should understand before planning new charging sites About the guest Maarten Staats works at Enexis, one of the leading Dutch Distribution System Operators (DSOs), and is also the creator of GridCapacityMaps, a platform helping visualize grid capacity constraints across regions. Resources & Links 🌍 Grid Capacity Maps https://www.gridcapacitymaps.eu 🔗 Maarten Staats on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/maartenstaats/ Continue Listening 👉 Interested in the solution side of the story? Listen to Episode 47, where we explore batteries, smart energy management, and flexibility solutions for grid-constrained charging sites in the Benelux. Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • April 23 · 36 min

    Episode 48 – Inside Survoltage: A French BSP on Flexibility Markets & EV Charging

    🎙️ Episode Overview In this episode, we dive into one of the most strategic topics for the future of EV charging: flexibility - and the role of BSPs (Balancing Service Providers). As renewable energy penetration increases, the grid is becoming more volatile - and the ability to adapt consumption in real time is turning into a critical asset. Together with Jeff Knoepfli, CEO & Founder of Survoltage, we explore how flexibility markets work, how energy assets can be orchestrated, and what it means concretely for charge point operators - across both commercial and residential contexts. ⚡ What You’ll Learn What a Balancing Service Provider actually does How flexibility markets work - from a practical, operator perspective Why EV charging infrastructure is becoming a key flexibility asset The role of aggregation, smart control, and real-time optimisation How CPOs can start unlocking new revenue streams from their assets How flexibility also applies to B2C use cases, including smart homes and residential energy management The growing convergence between B2C, B2B, and EV charging flexibility 🔍 Key Takeaways for CPOs Flexibility is moving from “nice-to-have” to a core component of the EV charging business model Your charging infrastructure can become a revenue-generating asset, not just a cost center You don’t need to go all-in immediately — start with pilots and scale Batteries + smart energy management + BSP integration = value stacking opportunity The market is evolving fast — early movers will capture the most value 🔗 Related Episode If you want to go deeper into how flexibility is already deployed at scale in the Nordics, listen to: 👉 Episode 37 – with My Näslund (Flower) 👤 About the Guest Jeff Knoepfli is the CEO & Founder of Survoltage, a French company building digital infrastructure to connect, control, and optimise distributed energy assets across residential (B2C) and commercial (B2B) environments. Their mission: turn energy consumption into a flexible, controllable resource that supports the grid and unlocks new value streams. 🌐 Learn More Survoltage: https://www.survoltage.fr/ FLEXECHARGE's collaboration with BSPs: https://www.flexecharge.com/partnerships/software Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • April 8 · 25 min

    Episode 47 – When EV Charging Hits the Grid Wall: Inside the INTERFACE Benelux conference

    ⚡ Episode Overview What happens when EV charging growth collides with grid reality? In this special episode of the Charge Point Podcast, we take you inside INTERFACE Benelux - a live event where industry leaders gathered to tackle one of the biggest challenges in electrification today: grid constraints. Through a series of short interviews recorded on-site, you’ll hear how key players across EV charging, battery storage, and energy markets are adapting — and what it really takes to keep scaling in a grid-constrained world. You'll hear interviews with Robert (FLEXECHARGE), Tessa (Intercel), Mike (Kwetta), Peter (Floading) and Jan (FLEXECHARGE). 🎧 What You’ll Learn Why the grid - not the charger - is now the main bottleneck How BESS (battery storage) is becoming essential to unlock new charging capacity What “energy orchestration” really means for modern charging sites Where the real value lies in flexibility markets today Why EV charging sites are evolving into full energy systems 🧠 Key Takeaways EV charging has entered a new phase: from deployment → to energy optimisation Grid constraints are structural, not temporary BESS + EMS + smart orchestration are becoming the new standard Flexibility is no longer theoretical - it’s a real business lever The industry is still early - and learning in real time 🚀 Why This Matters As EV adoption accelerates, the ability to work with the grid - not against it - will define the winners in this space. This episode gives you a front-row seat to how leading players are already making that shift. 🔗 Links & resources More info about the INTERFACE conference series: https://www.flexecharge.com/event-interface-ev-charging-meet-the-grid-in-person On-Demand Webinar: https://www.flexecharge.com/resources/webinars/the-power-of-co-located-batteries-unlocking-the-full-revenue-potential Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • March 31 · 30 min

    Episode 46: 800+ Grid Operators, One Massive Problem - And How CPOs Can Standardize Their Rollout

    Scaling EV charging infrastructure in Europe sounds straightforward — until you hit the grid. In markets like Germany, Charge Point Operators are facing a highly fragmented landscape with 800+ Distribution System Operators (DSOs) — each with their own technical requirements, processes, and timelines. The result? More complexity, longer delays, and unpredictable rollouts. In this episode, Christophe is joined by Christof (Product Strategist) and Nicolas (Head of Customer Success) from FLEXCHARGE to unpack what’s really happening behind the scenes — and what it means for CPOs looking to scale. They break down why grid integration is becoming the #1 bottleneck, how lack of standardization is slowing down the entire industry, and why forward-thinking operators are shifting their approach. Because this isn’t just a technical challenge — it’s a strategic one. ⚡ What You’ll Learn Why grid integration is becoming the main constraint for scaling EV charging The real impact of 800+ DSOs on deployment speed and complexity Why every new site risks becoming a custom engineering project How standardization can unlock faster, more predictable rollouts What role solutions like the FLEXBOX play in simplifying grid integration Why EV charging is evolving into a grid-interactive energy asset What CPOs need to do today to stay competitive tomorrow 🔑 Key Takeaways Fragmentation kills scale: dealing with hundreds of DSOs creates operational chaos Standardization is a competitive advantage, not just an efficiency gain Compliance is only the starting point — flexibility and control are the next frontier Charging infrastructure is becoming part of the energy system, not just mobility 🧠 About the Guests Christof – Product Strategist at FLEXCHARGE, focused on designing scalable, grid-integrated solutions for EV charging infrastructure. Nicolas – Head of Customer Success at FLEXCHARGE, working closely with CPOs across Europe to support rollout and operations at scale. 🔗 Links & resources On-Demand Webinar: Solving the Grid Control Bottleneck in Germany: https://www.flexecharge.com/resources/webinars/the-best-cpos-dont-reinvent-deployments-they-standardise-meet-the-flexbox Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • March 17 · 28 min

    Episode 45 – How Smart Freight Centre Is Accelerating the Shift to Zero-Emission Trucking

    In this episode, we sit down with Samuel Barendregt from the Smart Freight Centre, a global nonprofit working at the forefront of zero-emission freight. Freight is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize — but things are starting to move. Battery-electric trucks are entering the market, charging infrastructure is evolving, and new collaborative models are emerging to bridge the gap between ambition and execution. So what will it actually take to scale zero-emission freight? 🚀 What we cover Why battery-electric trucks are emerging as the leading solution for zero-emission road freight The critical role of charging infrastructure — and why depot charging dominates today The rise of shared charging hubs and semi-public depot infrastructure The importance of megawatt charging systems (MCS) for long-haul trucking Why collaboration across the ecosystem is essential to unlock scale The current state of pilot projects vs. real deployment Why the biggest gap today is not technology — but knowledge and coordination 🔑 Key insights Depot charging is king: the majority of truck charging happens at depots due to cost and operational control Shared infrastructure is emerging: fleets are beginning to collaborate on semi-public charging to improve utilization Battery-electric trucks are leading the transition, with other technologies playing more limited roles The industry is still in an early stage, especially when it comes to advanced solutions like MCS and V2G Learning and collaboration today = competitive advantage tomorrow 🌍 About Smart Freight Centre A global nonprofit focused on reducing emissions in the freight sector. They work with major companies like Amazon, IKEA, DHL, and LEGO to: Track and report emissions Enable collaborative decarbonization projects Accelerate the adoption of zero-emission technologies Their mission: align the freight sector with 1.5°C climate targets. 🔗 Links & resources Smart Freight Centre Connect with Samuel Barendregt On-Demand Webinar: Solving the Grid Control Bottleneck in Germany Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • March 5 · 21 min

    Episode 44 - Speed vs. Grid Reality: Inside ELECTRA’s German Expansion

    Germany is Europe’s largest automotive market - and one of the most challenging environments to scale EV charging infrastructure. In this episode of the Charge Point Podcast, host Christophe Lephilibert speaks with Paul Tonini, General Manager of ELECTRA Germany, about the realities of rolling out high-power EV charging (HPC) networks in one of Europe’s most complex regulatory and grid landscapes. From navigating 800+ Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) to managing grid capacity constraints, permitting challenges, and fragmented technical requirements, Paul shares practical insights into what it really takes to scale EV charging infrastructure in Germany. The conversation also explores why standardization, grid integration, and scalable technology architecture are becoming essential for Charge Point Operators (CPOs) that want to expand across Europe. If you're interested in EV charging infrastructure, grid integration, high-power charging networks, or the future of electric mobility, this episode provides a real-world perspective from the front lines of the industry. Key Topics Covered • Why Germany is one of the most important EV charging markets in Europe • The operational challenges of dealing with 800+ distribution system operators (DSOs) • How grid capacity and connection delays impact EV charging rollout timelines • Why standardization and repeatable infrastructure designs are critical for scaling charging networks • How ELECTRA differentiates through customer experience, charging site design, and technology • The growing importance of grid control, load management, and smart energy infrastructure • Future trends in high-power charging architecture, including centralized power cabinets and dispenser charging systems ⚡ Resources On-Demand Webinar: Solving the Grid Control Bottleneck As discussed in this episode, one of the biggest challenges for Charge Point Operators expanding EV charging networks in Germany and Austria is managing grid compliance and Distribution Network Operator (DNO) requirements. Fragmented grid rules, complex technical interfaces, and unpredictable approval timelines can significantly slow down EV charging infrastructure deployment. In this on-demand webinar, we explain how operators can simplify grid integration and accelerate rollout using standardized grid-control infrastructure. 👉 Watch the webinar In this session, you’ll learn how the FLEXBOX helps CPOs: • Simplify grid operator control integration • Standardize deployments across fragmented DNO environments • Accelerate HPC site commissioning and rollout • Future-proof charging hubs for energy flexibility, load management, and grid services About Our Guest : Paul Tonini General Manager Germany – ELECTRA Paul has nearly a decade of experience in the electric mobility and EV charging industry. Before joining ELECTRA, he worked across several companies in the energy and charging ecosystem, helping develop charging networks and mobility solutions across Europe. Today, he leads ELECTRA’s expansion in Germany, one of the most competitive and strategically important EV charging markets in Europe. Under his leadership, ELECTRA is building a fast-growing high-power charging network focused on urban c Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

  • February 19 · 27 min

    Episode 43 – Scaling Fast Charging with Batteries: Enico’s Take on Co-Located BESS

    Episode Overview Grid constraints are no longer an exception - they are becoming the norm. Across Europe, Charge Point Operators are facing limited grid capacity, long connection lead times, and rising energy costs. In this episode, Christophe speaks with Topias Koskela, Sales & Development Director at Enico, about how co-located Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are helping CPOs scale fast-charging infrastructure in real grid conditions. Using Recharge’s pilot site in Vesterås, Sweden, as a case study, they explore how batteries can move from pilot deployments to scalable roll-out blueprints. Topics Covered Why BESS adoption has accelerated over the past two years The impact of grid constraints on fast-charging expansion How co-located batteries enable power boosting and site growth Why peak shaving alone is rarely enough to justify the investment What “value stacking” means in practice Combining peak shaving, arbitrage, and frequency markets Operational realities: integration, availability, and DNO requirements Battery sizing considerations for high-power charging sites What CPOs should evaluate before launching their first BESS project Key Insights BESS is becoming a strategic enabler, not just a technical workaround. Profitability depends on stacking multiple value streams - not relying on a single use case. Seamless integration between chargers, batteries, and EMS platforms is critical. High availability and long-term serviceability are key KPIs for CPOs. Co-located BESS is evolving from pilot phase to standard infrastructure design. Resources & Links “Optimisation of co-located BESS”, an on-demand webinar with Dr. Robert Brehm, CTO at FLEXECHARGE – sign up here Got some feedback or questions? Text us! You can get more information on our website. Give us some stars please 🌟 If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a 5-stars note and leave us a review. Get in Touch: Do you have suggestions for future guests or topics? Reach out to us at hello@flexecharge.com. Subscribe & Stay Updated: 🔔 Make sure to subscribe to the Charge Point Podcast to stay updated on the latest trends and developments in the world of EV charging and energy. 📩 You can subscribe to our Newsletter, The Charge Point Journal, by clicking here. 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼 And you can follow us on Linkedin by clicking here and connect with Christophe here. ⚡ Let’s keep the conversation—and the electrons—flowing.

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