Introduction to e-Mobility, Transaction Types and GreenFlux Billing Engines
e-Mobility Eco-system
The EV market has many important actors:
GreenFlux platform builds features for 2 of these
actors: the CPO and the eMSP.
CPO - Charge Point Operator: Operates, maintains and
sometimes owns the charging 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, through an app or payment terminal), also
known as ad-hoc payment.
- Via an eMSP.
When paying Ad Hoc, a Payment Service Provider (PSP),
facilitates the transfer of funds between driver and CPO, adding some fee on top
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.
GreenFlux Billing Engines
GreenFlux platform is equipped with 3 billing engines, which aim at calculating costs for a wide range of use cases. These billing engines run every time we try to calculate a CDR, and are responsible for calculating the wholesale, reimbursement and/or retail costs, as applicable.