OCPP, the Open Charge Point Protocol, is the language wallboxes speak when they talk to the network. It is dull, technical, invisible to the consumer, and quietly the most important specification in the home charging market.
This piece exists because we increasingly tell customers: do not buy a wallbox that does not support OCPP. The reason is straightforward, and it is worth twenty minutes of reading.
What OCPP is
OCPP defines how a charger communicates with a back-office system. Tariff signalling, session billing, firmware updates, fleet management and smart-grid signalling all flow over OCPP. Version 1.6 has been in the field for years. Version 2.0.1 adds bidirectional charging, ISO 15118 plug-and-charge, and finer-grained energy management.
OCPP is open, which is the unusual thing about it. Most charging-related standards are closed: each manufacturer has its own protocol, its own back-office, its own captive customer. OCPP is the deliberate antidote to that.
Why it matters at home
OCPP support means your wallbox can be operated by anybody. Your energy supplier. Your car manufacturer. A future, cheaper, better app you haven't heard of yet. If a manufacturer goes out of business (and several have, since 2020), your wallbox keeps working because OCPP is a public standard.
The cleanest way to test a wallbox's openness is to read its OCPP changelog. If there isn't one, you have your answer.
If you bought a wallbox five years ago that only spoke a proprietary protocol, you may now have a £700 brick on your wall. We have replaced about a hundred of these in the last twelve months.
What we sell
Every wallbox in our shop supports OCPP 1.6 at minimum. Most support 2.0.1. We will not stock a wallbox that does not support OCPP. This is the single most important line in our buying policy.
: Daniel Whitcombe
Browse quality Type 2 charging cables to find your fit.