Flexibility Management for Recharge's EV Charging Network

Recharge, with the help from FLEXECHARGE, has launched two strategic initiatives that redefine the role of public fast charging in the energy system: participating in flexibility markets through VPP activation and integrating BESS to enhance site performance and monetisation. Together, these efforts strengthen both operational resilience and financial returns across their network.

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How Recharge Unlocks More Value With co-located BESS

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The challenge

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Recharge, the largest high-power charging network in the Nordics, has already deployed BESS in the past. Now, they are launching two new BESS pilots in Sweden, one in Västerås with ENICO, and one in Malmö with Polarium, both enabled by Flower as BRP.

Yet, deploying new battery models across a large network presents a complex challenge. Each manufacturer uses different protocols, interfaces, and control logic, making it difficult to integrate batteries reliably without risking vendor lock-in or site instability.

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At the same time, the business case for BESS only works if the batteries can serve multiple purposes: peak shaving, boosting, arbitrage, and participation in flexibility markets. Running a battery for a single use case is rarely enough to achieve the required ROI.

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Recharge needed a unified way to connect new suppliers and a smart optimisation layer capable of turning every installed battery into a flexible, revenue-generating asset.

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The solution

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Thanks to FLEXECHARGE’s HARMON-E unique architecture, Recharge can easily integrate various BESS brand, including ENICO and Polarium, into a single control layer that communicates seamlessly with chargers, meters, and the grid.

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The platform abstracts battery-specific protocols (API, Modbus TCP, MQTT) and standardises them, ensuring stable connection, reliable telemetry, and full control across both pilot sites. This frees Recharge to test new suppliers without being locked into any hardware ecosystem.

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Once connected, the optimisation engine dynamically allocates the battery to the most valuable use case at any moment:

• Peak shaving to avoid costly grid peaks.

• Battery power boosting to unlock higher charging performance on limited grid capacity.

• Arbitrage based on dynamic tariffs.

• Ancillary services participation, enabled through their BRP partner Flower.

• DNO-compliant curtailment when required – for example in the DACH region

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Together, this creates a multi-layer value stack that maximises the economic contribution of each battery, while ensuring a stable charging experience for drivers.

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Expected Impact

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• New revenue streams: Recharge can monetise their BESS through arbitrage, peak shaving, and participation in frequency markets, creating strong additional income beyond charging alone.

• Operational efficiency: By using batteries to buffer demand peaks and support high-power output, Recharge can reduce grid-related costs and avoid expensive grid upgrades at future sites.

• Supplier flexibility: The vendor-agnostic integration approach ensures Recharge remains free to choose and test the best BESS manufacturers as they scale their storage portfolio.

• Future-proofed charging network: With batteries integrated into both site optimisation and flexibility markets, Recharge moves from being a passive energy consumer to an active contributor to grid balancing, with a scalable model ready for future market expansion.
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Recharge Builds the World’s First VPP on Public Fast Chargers

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The Challenge

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Recharge, the largest high-power charging network in the Nordics, wanted to maximize the value of its charging sites beyond selling electricity. In competitive energy markets, it can make more financial sense to sell flexibility services — the ability to quickly adjust consumption to support grid balance — than to provide charging alone.

However, to qualify for these markets, charging infrastructure must meet strict requirements from the Transmission System Operator (TSO), including the ability to respond to grid activation signals in under eight seconds.

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The Solution

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Together with FLEXECHARGE and with Fever, as the Balancing Service Partner, Recharge launched the world’s first Virtual Power Plant (VPP) built on public DC fast chargers.

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The solution enables Recharge’s ultra-fast charging hubs to:

• Dynamically adjust load across chargers within seconds to participate in frequency containment reserve (FCR) markets.
• Aggregate 43 MWh of capacity, across 66 sites and more than 500 high-power charge points, into a single flexibility resource.
• Redistribute power reductions intelligently across charging sessions to avoid any impact on the EV driver experience.
• Comply with TSO requirements through collaboration with EVSE partners Alpitronic and Kempower, which adapted their chargers for sub-8-second response

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By intelligently redistributing power reductions across many simultaneous charging sessions, the system ensures smooth compliance with grid activations — without compromising the user experience.

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Expected Impact

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• New revenue streams: Access to lucrative grid flexibility markets alongside traditional charging income.
• Grid stability: Recharge sites now contribute to balancing electricity supply and demand.
• Scalability: Initial rollout in Sweden’s SE3 region, with potential expansion to more grid areas and future integration with battery storage.
• Future-proofed CPO model: Public charging networks evolving from pure consumers to active grid assets.

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