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

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.

At ICNC26 in Berlin, this year's theme — "Collaboration at Scale: Establishing the Open Smart Charging Ecosystem" — played out in real conversations on the show floor. In this special multi-guest episode, Christophe sits down with four people building that open ecosystem from different angles: Joakim Arvidsson (Peak Energy) on untangling grid costs, Bradford Crist (ChargeMate) on AI-driven driver support, Oumaima Bounouadar (OCPP Lab) on true end-to-end interoperability testing, and Jaap Burger on bridging the gap between CPOs and regulators.

Grid congestion is forcing CPOs to rethink how they power fast-charging sites, and co-located battery storage is quickly becoming central to that shift. In this episode, Michel Verschuere, founder of Belgian balance service provider Yuso, joins Christophe Lephilibert to explain why classic ancillary services like FCR and aFRR rarely fit public charging, why the "duck curve" is becoming a "canyon curve," and where real flexibility value lies today - peak shaving, day-ahead optimization, and imbalance markets. He also details a live three-way partnership between FLEXECHARGE, Yuso, and Intercell.