Billing Basics
e-Mobility Eco-system
The EV market has many important actors:
The GreenFlux platform builds features for 2 of these
actors: the CPO and the eMSP.
CPO: Charge Point Operator. Operates, maintains and
sometimes owns the infrastructure and/or land.
eMSP: e-Mobility Service Provider. Provides services to
drivers, like access to charge stations and monthly invoicing, as well as
management services for fleets.
e-Mobility Transactions
Broadly speaking, there are 2 ways a driver can pay for a
session:
- Directly to the CPO (generally using a credit card), also
known as Ad Hoc payment
- Via an eMSP
When paying Ad Hoc, a Payment Service Provider, or PSP,
facilitates the transfer of funds between driver and CPO, adding some fee ontop
of the CPO’s base price.
When paying via eMSP, there are actually
2 transactions occurring:
- A retail (B2C) transaction between Driver and eMSP. This is usually done either with a “cost plus” model (e.g. CPO fee + 5%), or a flat fee model (40 cents/ kWh).
- A wholesale (B2B) transaction between eMSP and CPO. When the CPO and eMSP are different parties, this is a roaming transaction.
The CPO and eMSP can be the same party; in this case, it is
a non-roaming transaction, though in the GreenFlux platform it is still split
as Retail and Wholesale for consistency.
There is a 3rd type of transaction, specific to CPOs:
Reimbursement. When the CPO does not own the energy contract for a charger,
they need to be able to calculate how much must be reimbursed to the contract
owner. There are 2 primary use cases:
- The CPO operates a charger at a business location. The CPO charges drivers/eMSPs X cents/ kWh. The CPO must reimburse the landlord Y cents per kWh for the electricity.
- The CPO installs home chargers for fleet drivers. The fleet manager must reimburse their employee Y cents/kWh for the electricity consumed and add it onto their paycheck.