The Charge Point Podcast is an EV charging podcast featuring expert insights....

Solar, battery storage and EV charging are merging into one system, and grid capacity is the main reason. Christos Tsegkis, Regional Manager EV Charging at Sungrow, sees large CPOs across Germany, the Nordics and Southeastern Europe asking for combined PV, BESS and charging solutions from the start. He explains how on-site storage reduces dependence on DSO approvals, why energy management decides the return on these sites, and what megawatt charging for electric trucks means for the next generation of charging hubs.

Szymon Żmijewski, software developer, and Jan Köster, CCO and co-founder, both at FLEXECHARGE, explain broker forking: an OCPP proxy architecture that connects each charger to a primary, a fallback and a service backend at the same time. Developed with Daimler Buses for bus depots, it keeps charging sessions running when the internet connection fails, using a mapping layer that aligns transaction IDs across all three backends. They also show how CPOs can use it to migrate between CPMS platforms gradually, a growing need as the European charging market consolidates.

Cedric De Cauwer, professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and researcher at the MOBI electromobility centre, brings the research view on EV flexibility to CPOs. He explains how reinforcement learning can exploit Belgian imbalance prices, why the driver is the biggest variable in any flexibility strategy, and how value stacking changes the business case for co-located batteries. He also covers the challenge of aFRR for EVs, predictable use cases like airport parking and truck depots, and why smart charging remains the fastest win for operators today.

Louis Dupasquier, CEO of Voltix and Easy Charge within the Vinci Group, explains why public charging, not battery technology, is the real bottleneck holding back electric trucks in Europe. Trucks need dedicated megawatt-class charging infrastructure that barely exists today, and Louis breaks down how France's incentives are closing the TCO gap with diesel, why Germany's fragmented grid makes connections harder, and why Europe needs to plan grid capacity ahead of demand instead of reacting to it. Voltix recently closed nearly 90 million euros to accelerate its rollout.