S2 Ep. 9: Jaap Burger, independent expert on EV grid integration | flexibility, grid congestion, the cost of public charging and V2G

Welcome to the Smart Charge by RiDERgy podcast. This is Claudio Geyken, founder and CEO of RiDERgy. This is your show to learn about all things energy management and smart charging innovation for electric vehicles and fleets. Yap Berger traveled from Utrecht to Berlin for this episode by electric coach, with exactly one charging stop at a truck charging hub near Hanover. Long-distance electric coach travel is no longer a story about the future. Yap has worked in e-mobility for 15 years.

He started at the city of Amsterdam on the first public on-street charge points, back when roaming meant operators emailing each other spreadsheets of identifiers and charge data records. Today, he works independently with grid operators, charge point operators, and policymakers and technologists, increasingly at the European level, translating for regulators what innovators can already do and translating back to the market what regulation could do for them. We talk about why the grid map of the Netherlands is almost entirely red for new connections.

And why that matters far less if you're flexible, about the new Dutch mechanism opening this autumn to distributed flexibility at low voltage, and about the cost loop that keeps public charging expensive. Enjoy the conversation with one real smart charging expert. Hey, how are you today? Hi, doing well. Still a little bit tired from the festival that is ICNC. Yes, we just had it the last 3 days, right? Right, right, so that's lots of talks, talks, talks, meetings, listening, chatting.

Yeah, and maybe to give the listeners - before we of course learn more about your background - let's just discuss it quickly. So what's your main takeaway, or do you have any thoughts that were particularly on your mind after the event? Well, the event grows every year, so I'm always impressed by how many more people are in the e-mobility ecosystem and come here. What I found fascinating, especially this year - the theme was about smart charging at scale - but I found it fascinating how many

actors and companies are active and specializing in specific aspects of that, whether it comes from software, operations, analysis, or even financing of flexibility. It's fascinating to see how that grows. And I think looking back, even just maybe 5 years ago, you would have sort of the single company trying to do it all and bringing it all into one system, and now you see there really is a need for, and there's really a growth market for, those that are able to specialize and really deliver upon

the promise of unlocking flexibility, which is something I believe is really, really needed. Yeah, totally, and maybe just to also - as we will probably use some jargon - we can already start discussing some things and make sure we have a framework. So flexibility, or call it energy management, or call it smart charging,

sometimes being used interchangeably, are definitely growing as concepts and as different nuances and niches in the market, with different players coming along. And I think that's important and it's right. I also agree with Orlin, who was having a keynote as the main sponsor of the event and the founder of Apeco, where his keynote's title was "get big, get niche, or get out." I like it because I think there's something to it - that you really need to break down this complexity of the topics we'll dive deep into.

You need to have specialists really understanding that and owning it. Yeah, fully, fully agree. Yeah. So I also attended, obviously, as you can hear, and yeah, also just a few thoughts beyond that. I think it's incredible how it grew. I think Habje, who is the organizer, is doing a great job there. I'm not sure if there's a much larger conference around this particular topic than that one in the world, so it's all impressive to be at the airport as well, organizing it in the middle of Berlin.

What I find impressive is how much it's also a networking event plus a high-quality conference. And sometimes it's quite hard, because the networking obviously is so important that you sometimes just miss some of the conference parts. I'm also happy that all of those are being recorded and you can watch them later to catch up. I also watch them on YouTube, and it's probably not for the very newcomers in the

EV industry, but even then I think you can do some hand-holding and it's a very open networking environment where you can see people just talking and exchanging knowledge and updates, and others spending time watching the speakers live as well. I think it's sometimes also good to meet the person in real life, but of course it's great that you can watch them all on YouTube. Yeah, and what I found

especially useful - there's a main stage, an innovation stage, a tech stage, and some of the sponsors also have their own stages - so there's a whole range of topics being discussed. Depending on what your interest is, whether it's really the technical details of communication, or whether it's about financing, or whether it's about actual use cases, there is something for everyone in the program. Totally. This year, what I found super interesting was also the African session.

There were a few very important stakeholders from Africa that attended, and it was interesting to get a very close view and discussion after their presentation and the podium discussion on how Kenya is basically using a lot of electric buses for their operations. I talked with the one in charge, and they were agreeing when I was asking if it's the right moment now that developing countries are leapfrogging ICE vehicles with e-mobility, like they did with previous technologies. And they were saying, yeah, it's the right moment.

TCOs, costs alone - we don't really need regulation. It's a beautiful time to experience that, right? That's fascinating to see, and those are some of the learnings that you probably.

You need to be in the room and see the people discussing it to really understand and feel how important that change is. Buses are a good segue, and maybe we can close with that anecdote as well, so we don't spend too much time on the ICNC now, as we want to hear about your background and talk really about smart charging in more detail. You live in the Netherlands, right? And you came by bus, but not any bus. Tell us.

So this was an electric coach organised by Tandem Drive, a Dutch company that is basically a software layer for CPOs and MSPs in the EV space. They gathered a group of e-mobility people from the Netherlands, so we travelled from Utrecht to Berlin by electric coach. We had to charge one time in between because it has a practical range of around 600 kilometres, which is just short of the distance Utrecht–Berlin, so we stopped at a heavy-duty vehicle charging hub from Mayland close to Hanover.

Which was fascinating to see, also how much it is already in use by electric trucks. And obviously the coach being able to travel long distance electrically - it's no longer something for the distant future; it's something that can be done already today. I would expect maybe some of those operating commercial long-distance bus lines could start to use electric coaches. To be honest, I think in the first phase it would make most sense.

Doing things on a single charge, so all those trips that are within the battery range of the vehicle. But as we see continuous development of the charging infrastructure, the charging speed, and also charging locations - because you would need different amenities - this can change rapidly as well. Because as you already mentioned for the case of Kenya and other African countries, that applies in Europe as well obviously. The economics just make sense for electrifying. Yeah, very cool.

Yeah, I'm also following Flix actively and their opinions on the electrification rate that is possible. Cool that you experienced it firsthand. So let's dive in and learn more about you. Can you tell us about your background? We can also go a little bit back just so that we understand how you arrive at being the smart charging expert, as I've used to say a few times these days. So my first work in e-mobility started over 15 years ago already, so it feels like a long time saying that.

I worked for the city of Amsterdam at that time, and they were deploying the first public on-street EV charging points. I helped them shape the processes, the interaction with the user, but also the interaction with the relevant stakeholders - notably the grid operator. I became project leader, and together with the whole team we tendered for a public charging network. We did a second tender, and for that I had to learn and understand some of the technical standards, the concepts, the rules. But also many of these roles were still undefined at that time.

So together with others we had to find and define some of the interactions in that system. Just to mention, as we will probably discuss these roles - CPO, CPMS, MSP - all this jargon was not defined back in 2011. There were different names, and you didn't really have a clear division in those roles, CPO, MSP.

It wasn't as clearly defined. Most of the examples that were available, also from other countries like the US, were single-system networks built on the idea that all of it would be within one system - both the CPMS managing the charging stations, but also the user management and the billing. But we in Amsterdam wanted to have a system where you could have multiple charge point operators, and the user could have a single access token - at that time still the RFID cards that are still being used - to enable users to use a single access mechanism.

To unlock charging at different operators, whether it was a public charging operator in city A or a public charging operator in city B, but also including private charging. So we had to shape a system where you had these roles more clearly defined - who is operating the charging point and what does that entail: authentication, measuring, billing. But who to send the bill to?

That recipient would be the MSP, so they would take on information from various CPOs and ensure that it gets bundled into a single invoice for the driver, which also involved basically defining the concept of EV roaming. And from there on, obviously all things professionalised and there became dedicated roles also within roaming protocols for that. Yeah, because Hubject was not created in 2011 - I don't remember. We had a few episodes about Hubject with the founders, but I can't recall - did you use them already back then? No, no, no.

So all of this predates OCPI and predates other roaming hubs or protocols at the time. At the very early stage, roaming meant that there was a whitelist in a spreadsheet that was shared between operators, and that was the basis for sending other spreadsheets with

charge data records. So knowing which identifier charged at which charging station - we're really talking spreadsheets, CSV files, Excels that were sent by email around. Really, really basic. I'm glad that system has since then obviously evolved and has become much more professional, secure, much more efficient and standardized. Interesting. And so then from this experience, you went to do what? So I went to work with various companies. I also became a freelancer now 11 years ago, working in this space.

So that is my company, and I work for different organizations in the public space and private space. But more and more focusing on the EV grid integration topic, looking at it from the user perspective: how is the user being incentivized to provide flexibility in their charging session needs? How are they being informed? What are their benefits - also obviously financial benefits? What does that need in terms of interaction between the different actors? So obviously the user, MSP, CPO, but then also on the technical level, you get to the charging station.

The charging station might need to interact with other charging stations on the same site. There might be an energy management system on site that you want to use. There might be inputs, forecasts of energy production and energy prices that you might want to incorporate in that. And especially the past five years, I've been looking at that also from a more regulatory and policy perspective at the European level. So how is EU legislation helping to shape that market? How are European states deploying that at scale, and what is the market doing?

What are innovators doing, basically pushing the boundaries of existing frameworks? So I also sometimes try to describe it as: I try to translate to policymakers what the innovators already can do and the barriers they face, because they are at the edge of what is possible. They are the first ones running into barriers, so they can identify what needs to be changed in regulation or in policy to advance this topic. And also the other way around - there are many companies in this space that

sometimes struggle to understand what policy and regulation can do for them - not necessarily as a burden, as it's often perceived, but also sometimes shaping new opportunities. And just to understand, from this Amsterdam experience, how did you get to do this? I saw some of these experiences, but maybe you can elaborate already on

what were the key milestones that led you to do this. So, for instance, one of the first things I did as a freelancer was for an energy supplier in the Netherlands that had a basic idea of how to do EV smart charging using the connected car API - that was back in 2015. Electric vehicles on the road were becoming more like a computer where you have an API, which is a programming interface - I don't know how much we need to explain all those acronyms. Not too many, it's OK.

So at that time it was something novel that a car became much more than something for mobility, but also just like any internet-connected device - something you can exchange information with, send commands to. And that enabled this company to start and stop charging remotely on the vehicle. By linking that to the trading desk of that utility - being able to tap into short-term needs, maybe to start charging and thereby absorb some of the surplus, or maybe to pause charging to prevent being on the wrong side of the energy balance -

it obviously had a value for that utility, but a value large enough to carve out a piece of that to both finance the company and get the user on board. So they were receiving bonus payments for providing that flexibility and would see their energy bills reduced through the concept of smart charging. Very cool - and this is already in 2015. Just to be precise, and as I'd like us to get to that level of detail: did they use it for - and maybe also explain to the listeners, because we rarely discuss these types of topics -

there is an imbalance mechanism - I think that's what you were hinting at - an imbalance mechanism for utilities to basically keep the grids always stable at 50 Hz, and also in trades on the intraday market. There is a balance that needs to be held in the overall system, and so each participant, both producers and consumers, has an interest in - or actually is mandated to - forecast their

total amount of energy that they will produce or consume in a particular 15-minute slot. If they miss this forecast and cause an imbalance, then they have to pay a fine, and this is quite hefty. I don't know what the latest figures are and how this fine translated in 2015 and how it is evolving, but at least there is an incentive, as far as I know, still today. And it's rarely seen as one of the smart charging levers - it's mostly other topics we discuss, like peak shaving, so reducing grid fees.

Or participating in energy markets, just trading, so to say. Maybe I can elaborate on what was happening there and what's your view on imbalancing markets, right? So it was already one of the, let's call it one of the more advanced energy markets, being able to almost in real time adjust that energy balance. And there are multiple time spans, so there are multiple.

Moments where you trade electricity - maybe not as a user, but your energy supplier and their balanced responsible party, they forecast basically your energy need, and not only yours but from all their consumers, but also from the producers, and obviously we also have prosumers that are both. And the more accurate that forecast is, the better they can source energy, the better they can trade.

And all of that has a certain value, and some of that is not always as visible - so it could be directly in prices, but sometimes it's avoiding fines, as you say, or it could be because it enables you to sell a certain volume that you already bought in advance and sell that at a later time, so you also have a spread between two prices. The so-called virtual trades. Yes. So how - maybe because I never fully engaged in the virtual trades - as you bring it up, how would it work in practice?

You have a vehicle, you have 10 hours or so of flexibility in a day. Then instead of buying the electricity at the beginning, as prices develop in that 10-hour window, you're able to sell again the energy and buy it at a later moment, right? Because it's a layered market, so there are different time spans where you can buy electricity. Some of these are futures for future delivery - you can buy electricity at different times.

So for instance you could buy electricity for a certain moment in time a year from now. And obviously having a controllable asset - which are EVs, their batteries - if you can control the charging, means that you can, up to real time, decide what you want to do with that: whether it's still the best opportunity to keep and stick with the volume of energy that you already procured, let's say a year ahead or a day ahead, or to sell it to someone else in the energy markets.

Because that would give you a higher price, even knowing that you would need to buy electricity for that vehicle at a later point in time. So that's another type of flexibility - being flexible in when you actually need electricity to be delivered. I'm thinking, so I understand the example if you bought significant time ahead, then indeed you can readjust your planning. But why would you in a day-ahead buy at an expensive price and then in the intraday buy at the low price, if you can from the get-go in the day-ahead buy at the low price?

So it's also partly hedging, because obviously in the intraday you don't know all the prices in advance. So most energy traders would have some kind of a combined portfolio - some of that is really long-term volumes that are being bought, but other parts of that you buy at different time scales, and especially with controllable assets it becomes interesting, especially at the moment when there's a ramp-up - so at the beginning of the evening peak, or when the evening peak starts to fall again - there you get interesting effects, also partly because.

Most of the dynamics on the wholesale energy price, and especially the day-ahead energy market as the main market where the most volume is being traded, is shaped by weather. Solar obviously has a huge impact on prices, but as we all know, weather also has a certain unpredictable element to it, so even on the shorter term you might see deviations from that forecast.

There might be more sunshine than expected, or there might be just a little bit more clouds - similarly with wind - and even on the consumption side, demand might be a little bit different than expected, and all of that basically rewards those that are able to in real time adjust their plan from the day-ahead and other aheads. Makes sense. Now we're already deep diving, but let's finish off the background first. So you were in this - 2015 - was this already a company that was doing this, and you participated? Yes.

So I helped them develop the product and inform the engineering, work with carmakers to onboard them onto this platform, to work with energy suppliers to integrate this into their EV charging propositions to users - so not just in the Netherlands but also in other countries. Which was really fascinating and interesting to do. And then it became again sort of a moment - and I think that happens with a lot of startups, especially in the corporate space - sometimes there's a bit of back and forth being within.

The big corporate, and sometimes being a bit outside. And when it had to move back into the large corporate environment, I stepped out, and I think that's also a bit of the freedom that I like - being a freelancer, being able to then move on to a new project that gives new energy. Makes sense. So I started doing other things. I also worked with grid operators, helping them to understand what the value of electrification of transport is for their system and how to interact with it.

What their role is, what they should do, what they shouldn't do. Distribution grid operators, yes. And since then, helping multiple actors, whether that's private or public, helping to navigate what needs to be done to use the flexibility as beneficially as possible - basically for everyone involved, whether that's the distribution grid, or whether that's the national energy balance, or whether it's a user that wants to see his electricity bill reduced, or whether it's a charge point operator looking to.

Make the rollout of charging infrastructure more efficient, and how to increase the utilization rate, for instance. It's fascinating - you have a very broad background, also from being an operator really trying to set up charging for a city, to building a startup and doing smart charging very early on, and then needing to think in the details of an API being an endpoint, and then thinking very broadly about what the government needs to do, what the DSO needs to do, and so on.

So yeah, it makes the conversation even more interesting, understanding this broad, unique background. Let's take this segue from the background to what your current projects are. If you want to share a little bit what's on your mind - what is top of mind right now for you - then we can go into a little more detail on the use cases and discuss potential barriers and opportunities. I always sort of bring those different perspectives.

It's something I try to use to advance certain topics that might not be in the spotlight as much as they should be. So one of those topics is the affordability of public charging, which is a topic important to policymakers, and obviously it is important for a future market. But it's not always perceived as a topic for some of the CPOs in their current daily business today, whereas it's a topic that also shapes their market. I try to nudge them to understand how important it is that they work on the topic as well, because it.

Shapes the future market - it grows the future market for them - if we are able to create a system in which every user can switch to an electric vehicle. Because high cost of public charging specifically can be a barrier for other user groups. So there are always these feedback loops. Some of the high costs of public charging - on the cost side, meaning not the high prices charged by charge point operators, but the high costs they have on their end - are soft costs related to permitting.

To planning, but also the cost of grid connections, the cost of hardware, and the cost of software systems. All of that are factors that might lead to a higher price they need to charge users, which might lead to lower utilization, which then leads to lower turnover and lower revenues, or also lower bankability - so it might also impact the pace at which these CPOs can scale because they can't access the right financing on the right conditions. So it's all connected.

I try to help them understand what the buttons are they can press, what can they influence, and what do they need to ask policymakers, regulators, and grid operators to help shape their costs in a way that benefits the CPO, but also benefits society - because it would lower, for instance, the cost of grid build-out if you would enable more flexible.

Ways to work with the grid. So that could be in non-firm capacity agreements, it could be in flexibility mechanisms through local flexibility markets, or it could be with time-varying network tariffs. All of that helps the business case of a CPO, but also potentially helps bring down the charging price for the user, which then again enables electrification for new user groups, therefore grows the market - so higher usage.

More demand in the public charging market, so the public charging market grows, which makes it more interesting for everyone. Makes sense to me. So what's the role of smart charging - let's call it smart charging, or intelligent energy management, or flexible - let's just agree on calling it flex. Flex is the easiest. What's the role of flex within this broad question of affordability of CPOs? Is it the top issue, or do you think there are other levers?

What's the importance, and why are CPOs not willing to spend more time enabling that? I think - without going into too many paths at once - it's always a mix of measures. Flex at so many different levels is really important to bring down costs. Some of these measures might reduce 10% of costs, others might be 5%, and others might be 20%, but it's the combination of all of that.

That ultimately helps shape affordability and helps also shape the business case and viability of some of the public charging networks. So flex is important because it enables users, at the base level, to access the lower-cost energy from renewables that we have in abundance at certain times - that's the big chunk of value that can be accessed. The other big chunk of value is in avoiding peaks on the grid, which could also be the other side of the coin of those renewables being.

ingested into the grid, if we have a mechanism that at the same time that we have solar PV production also have the same amount of consumption. As localized as possible, that also helps avoid some of the peaks on the grid. But there's also the link between public charging and private charging. So on-site energy management is a key lever to bring down costs of electrification. If you're able to smartly use the capacity you have on the site - for instance if you have a depot in a commercial fleet - staying within certain boundaries can save you a considerable amount of grid cost.

If you're able to consume the electricity that you produce on site, there are related benefits to that that are significant. So I would say without the flex, electrification is definitely not as affordable as it could be. I think to make electrification work, flex is the thing that reduces friction. But so it seems like a no-brainer then to engage in it. So what's the - when you say you need to convince CPOs and work with the regulators - what are the actual topics, the hurdles, to make it happen?

Well, it's hugely complex. Even I sometimes struggle to fully understand how a certain mechanism works or how regulation works, and there's also a considerable amount of lag between stated policy goals. There might be a policy change, a law change, or a change to a regulation, but it might not enter into force until several years later - or it might actually be a change that then requires, as an example, a DSO to come up with a market-based mechanism for procuring flexibility for the local grid.

And then it might be that this is a requirement that enters into force January 1st, 2027. Then the DSO, the local grid operator, starts investigating how that could be. Maybe they have an internal report half a year later. Maybe they have a consultation round - hopefully they have a consultation round with the relevant parties, but sometimes not. They publish something. The regulator looks at it. Then it's being set, and then the mechanism maybe goes live again a year later, so it might already be 2028 by that time.

But then it turns out that for some of the actual actors in the market - let's stick with the example of a charge point operator or a depot operator - it's a mechanism that doesn't fit the way they work, or the concept of flexibility is a different concept than what they have in mind. Or it requires them to make forecasts on a wholly different time scale than they are used to working with. So many questions, so many topics.

One thing that comes to mind - you've probably engaged a lot with Martijn, shout out to their good reports where they try to keep track of all the different levers and the status by country. That's tremendous good work. Are there other sources like that that you use to keep track of this complexity, to simplify and structure it somehow?

Some of the projects I do involve this kind of analysis, trying to find out how things work, what the market conditions are, and bringing that together. Because it's really, really hard, and even within countries it's really hard. The example of Germany having 800 DSOs - but there are other countries like Sweden. Sweden also has, I don't know, 150 DSOs, maybe even more, that have different tariff structures.

And I think that's a good thing. We started this conversation about how there are these niche roles - companies fulfilling a niche role that are really valuable. One niche role is, for instance, being able to provide accurate descriptions of the network tariff in a certain region. As a CPO you want to deploy chargers, but how do you know what differences there are in the network tariff structure if you have 800 DSOs in Germany? So there are players that are able to help them.

Get that information into their system, and for instance that could help shape an investment decision or help shape the way they configure energy management on a certain site. Yeah. And as we're at it, maybe can you elaborate on the value pools that you think flex enables - both for fleets and CPOs to capture - and where you see the largest potential? So we can deep dive a little bit more on where there is potential, instead of losing track on side topics that will not be so relevant in your view.

Yeah. So I think the main lever ultimately is being able to move with generation. The broader topic of the energy transition is a transition from a system where generation followed demand - we move away from thermal power plants that are controllable and basically demand-following. We move to energy sources that are predictable but have a time-varying profile, mostly shaped by the weather as I said before. So we need demand to be following that supply.

If you're able to follow that supply, that's where you get to the low cost of electrification, the low cost of decarbonization. Being able to follow that is, I think, ultimately the biggest lever you have. But there's the big but - there's the grid. The capacity on the grid is not unlimited. The capacity at different levels of the grid, especially at the grid connection point where you would connect your charger or your depot, is not unlimited. There's also different value over time, so some of that over time it might be.

Still needed to expand the grid so you can access more of that renewable electricity being transferred across Europe. Ultimately the whole of Europe would benefit if we have a better build-out across the continent. If Spain could be using some of the wind from Denmark, for instance, through the interconnectors.

So ultimately there's a lot to be done there, but before we reach the point where we have the interconnectors we need, or on a specific site have the capacity you might need, there's also the shorter-term need to stay within capacity limits and to be able to adjust the profile. So it's stacking maybe that energy market with local grid connections and local grid conditions, and then it becomes a multi-input optimization already, right?

Yeah, the multi-criteria optimization that we think a lot about too. And one thing that I'd love to have your view on, that I find is not so much understood yet in the wider community, is everybody talks about peak shaving or managing peaks. But I think what lies under the hood of the peak is not fully understood. And especially interesting, if you think about it, there's peak shaving, which basically tries to create a base load, and then there's flex, which is trying to create peaks and move to a time window which is favorable in terms of costs.

Or in terms of congested grids. So how do you think about this apparent contradiction? And how are we going to manage this in the short term? And are we going to finally move away from this rigid grid fee structure which incentivizes peak shaving a lot? As far as I understand, one of the largest costs right now is just this kilowatt peak that is randomly taken for a year without considering in an intelligent way the congestion amount of the area.

Yeah, and I think that's still one of the key challenges of the phase we're currently in. Many understand that not every peak has the same impact, so peaks can be at different times, and sometimes a charging peak or demand peak can actually be very beneficial for the grid if it coincides with a supply peak. As I said, for instance, if you have on the same network a portion you might have.

So let's just pause on that moment, because I find it so well put. As you say, people are so proudly peak shaving when exactly there are peaks of different kinds. We should talk much more about the quality of the peak. There's a range of peaks, and sometimes it's good to peak shave, but sometimes you've done exactly the wrong thing by peak shaving - you should have created the peak, right?

Yes, and I think that's also the struggle we're in, because some of the earlier network tariffs or demand charges within a network tariff actually have the opposite effect of what they tried to achieve. So it might flatten the peak now, but then you would have a secondary peak at a later time that might actually be a new problem or a bigger problem.

And I think the ones shaping those tariffs - DSOs and regulators - still need to see more evidence. And I think that's maybe also a call from my side to many of the market actors that are already shaping that flexibility today: to show, tell, and demonstrate how unlocking the flexibility of EV charging - to stick to that topic - can really be beneficial for the grid in managing the type of peaks and delivering the quality of peaks that are needed. I was yesterday, actually - just brilliant that you bring it up, I need to tell this.

I was talking with commissioners from California, energy commissioners, and I was sharing this example. I'm kind of a podcast geek, as you've probably guessed, so I watched the Lex Fridman interview with Jensen Huang. And one thing that really struck me was that for three hours they talked about all things AI that you can imagine - you're probably also following the AI developments a lot. And then Fridman asked a lot of questions, and eventually Jensen said: is there anything I should have asked you? And he was like, yes, we should discuss.

This one thing that is on top of my mind right now: how do we manage peaks at data centers? And I was like, oh. And then he was really talking about exactly what we're just discussing. So this is one of the most critical things for AI development - how energy is being tariffed right now, how data centers can be approved depending on the peaks they are designed for, and how we can have flexibility in the way we manage AI loads. I find it quite striking - this is exactly what I'm working on all the time. So yeah.

We need to - so this is a call maybe for all the listeners as well. What is the call? We need to talk to DSOs, we need to talk to regulators, to the Bundesnetzagentur, the federal network agency, to the associations. And yes, exactly - show and demonstrate what you're able to do, how much you are able to shift in volume, but also the shape of the charging load that you're able to

fold and mold into something that works for the grid. And I think that needs to be quantified - in volumes but also in terms of quality: what time spans are available, how can you deliver, even long term, how can you avoid long-term grid investment, but also in the short term how can you help balance on a really local level. And I think.

DSOs need to see more of it and be able to rely on it as a reliable resource. And I think some of you - you mentioned Smarten, for instance - you're doing a great job in Brussels pointing that out and quantifying that and showing to policymakers at the European level. Yes, flexibility is a resource the whole flexibility industry can deliver. And this is what it can deliver for grids and for the energy system in terms of savings in avoided grid costs, or in being able to access more of that lower-cost generation that we have on the system.

And still it's difficult to deliver proof points on how it supports the grid if the grid structure is just old-fashioned and is not yet adapted to the new system, right? You're right. Maybe you can give examples of the Netherlands, as the Netherlands is always a country that is, on the one hand, quite innovative and leading in what we're discussing. And secondly, also particularly affected. I just want to shout out to Leonard Farahani, who is also a very good expert in this topic.

He shared yesterday at the ICNC how the map of the Netherlands was just turning red in terms of being fully congested right now. So maybe can you discuss a bit the ways that the Netherlands is trying to tackle this topic? Yeah. So I think what's happening in the Netherlands is really fascinating because you see some of those different approaches. Yes, there is a map of the Netherlands that is fully red to get new grid connections, and red means that it's probably not possible at this location to get a

fixed capacity allocated. But obviously, why do you need 24/7, 365 days a year, the same capacity on a grid connection point? So if you're able to be flexible - and obviously that's something that we discussed - if you have EVs, you probably are flexible. There are ways around it; you might not need capacity at all during the evening peak in winter times, for instance. So being more granular in data is something that is really needed.

Which at the moment is still a bit missing. So you see a map which is basically binary - yes, it's possible, or no, it's not possible - but there are so many nuances in between. So what if you would have a different demand profile? There might be more options. That's something that European policymakers are actually trying to explain to national lawmakers: we need a system where this granular grid information is made available. So having granular visibility - meaning location, time, and grid levels -

how congested a grid is, or how much capacity is available, can help developers find the locations or find the solutions that they need to work with, which could also include stationary batteries to overcome a problem, but it could also mean implementing a certain demand profile for charging. So that's one element.

The other element is: how good is the mechanism to incentivize flexible users for those that are already on the grid? Because this map is only talking about who is waiting in line to get access to the grid, but the big chunk obviously are those that are already on the grid - those that have already entered that system. So maybe call it like the scooter ride at a fair: there are people waiting in line to get in, they can't, and some of them are already driving around in there.

You need to also work with them to overcome some of those traffic jams. And there it's about how accessible the mechanisms are that are put in place by DSOs for those that can actually deliver that flexibility. And I've seen huge developments, especially over the past years and months - from something that

wasn't available, to a flexibility mechanism that mainly targeted really large commercial and industrial users, to something that is now arriving at a point where distributed flexibility - from single EVs, delivered also by mobility service providers and by aggregators - is something that is enabled to deliver flexibility to the grid.

So, just to be clear, is it working at scale right now in the Netherlands already? And it's also moving to a new phase this autumn, where there's a new market mechanism specifically allowing distributed energy resources - distributed flexibility connected at the low-voltage level - to participate in the flexibility market as well.

So if I'm an EV driver in the Netherlands and I plug in my charger either at home or at a public charger, then I can participate in the congestion management of the DSO, and you have a reduced fee - at the moment, yes. So there are companies that are able to provide you that access and deliver that to you as a driver, but also deliver that flexibility to the grid.

OK, well, that's already good for other countries to take as inspiration. And what did it take for the Netherlands to be able to do that - what were the hurdles that, let's say, other countries are facing that the Netherlands managed to surpass already? So I would say also some of these innovators in the market demonstrating the technical possibilities, but also demonstrating the value of the fleet.

That they could already tap into that flexibility that they could unlock. So some of those early players - shout out to Deaf Power, with some of their customers at Deaf Power, and we had them on the podcast with Michael Johans - they've been really hard at work demonstrating at scale how this mechanism could work. And by demonstrating that, they basically also convinced the grid operators: yes, this is a mechanism that can really contribute to their goals and needs. So I think that's also a great example of

again, showing and telling what you can do, and explaining that you can also create a market for yourself - well, not just for you, but for everyone in the market. But that requires - so for example, let's take the example of Deaf Power - also CPOs to be willing. Deaf Power cannot do it by themselves; they had to be able to demonstrate it in the first place, and also find willing CPOs and probably also willing DSOs. So it took

several stakeholders to do the demonstration. Right, and sometimes it takes time for them to understand what the benefits are for them. And I think it's slowly emerging, this understanding - also with CPOs - that there is value in flexibility that they alone cannot access, because they do not have direct access, for instance, to the driver. We're in a system where obviously we want to be interoperable, we want to have roaming, so you want to provide access to every EV driver.

But do you really want to interact with every EV driver's needs, or can there be a layer in between that can simplify that communication? So I think it becomes increasingly clear how collaboration also brings a lot of benefits to the whole value chain. Yeah, definitely - 100% we need more collaboration at all levels to enable these things, otherwise the value can also get stuck if one player doesn't play along, right? And maybe - which is also another topic I've had several conversations on -

the sometimes highly controversial Durchleitungs model in Germany: the pass-through or transit model, where the charge point operator is doing the charge point operation but not necessarily being the one responsible for the energy supply, and especially not for the balancing of that energy. Right, yeah. And I think one of the interesting benefits ultimately also for CPOs is that it can offload some of those more complex responsibilities from their end, helping them to create a more viable, investable, bankable business case for charging operations.

On the energy side, the demand profile and being able to forecast energy needs - and ultimately also maybe shaping the charging demand with smart charging, maybe in the future even bi-directional charging - within a fleet, an aggregated fleet, becomes a task then of maybe the MSP, or someone much more closely tied to the actual vehicle. Which ultimately brings the benefit that you have much higher predictability and a much more accurate profile - much less imbalance. So it helps the CPO, it helps the consumer, and ultimately it helps the system.

But it's still complex, and it's still something that again needs demonstration for everyone to understand how those benefits would play out. Yeah, it's a complicated topic, and I think few people - shout out to Knut and our friends at Decarbonized, who have been spearheading this idea - can explain it. And I think it still requires some education. Maybe we can just elaborate a bit on that. So, the problem as the setup is today - breaking it down so that you can then share more.

So the CPOs are the ones procuring the electricity and selling the electricity to the MSPs, who are in turn selling a certain amount of electricity to the drivers. And what you're suggesting is that the electricity being procured and sold by the CPO to the MSP - that part goes away, and it becomes completely the responsibility of the MSP. Right, so far, right? And then the problem with the CPO being in charge, as in the current model,

for flex, is that they might not be able to influence the driver as much as the MSP can - both in forecasting demand and then adjusting the balancing. Am I getting that right? Right, especially because they can mostly only influence it once the session has started. But I think part of it is even more interesting: knowing in advance the charging need, the volume, maybe nudging the driver to use a certain location. So there are many more steps and many more data points ahead of actually plugging into a charging station.

And so in the current setup, typically for a CPO it only starts as soon as someone plugs in, and you could do energy management - and that's still useful. But there's also this more advanced layer of knowing in advance, which then links to the topic of energy trading and forecasting that we touched upon. That requires much richer information on that specific driver. But to play devil's advocate - and it's a question I wanted to ask you - there's a bit of an open question on how the development of the MSP role would also be.

So we had actually, last episode, we had Karika and Isam here, the founders who enable CPOs to broadcast prices and set prices, thereby sort of circumventing the MSP. And also there are direct payment mandates, I think by half year, so then you don't really need to pay via your MSP app. Couldn't it also be done in the exact flip side, where you see much more responsibility at the CPO? And how do you look at that? Well, we need both, and I think CPOs should be able to broadcast their prices to MSPs.

Especially coming from the Netherlands, I sometimes struggle to understand why that doesn't work, because in the Netherlands it's much more commonplace that CPOs have price endpoints - we can dive into the technical details of that - but they publish their tariff prices to MSPs and it can be done in real time. In the German market it sometimes feels like something from, I don't know, utopia, to have a system like that in place. Utopia in many ways, but it sometimes feels like pricing is being treated as something that is being...

We could use the stereotype of, I don't know, it's something that you would sign and lock at the notary and then goes into a vault and stays fixed - but also secretive - between the CPO and MSPs for years. I think that doesn't fit today's market and today's needs. So yes, we need mechanisms in place, also roaming hubs and roaming protocols that are actually able to have real-time pricing and also forecasted pricing and historic pricing. We really should expand on that, from CPOs to MSPs.

So yes, that's something we need. And then on the MSP side, they need to be able to process that price information, because I also see a limitation in the market where some players aren't able to process different prices - they aren't able to process, for instance, two prices within the same charging session from the CPO. They can only use a single price per CPO because of software limitations. It's a software limitation, and I'm always, you know...

More optimistic, maybe, of what software can achieve than others think. In practice it's more complex, and I think they're probably right at some point. But I do think being able to process different prices, different times, different locations should - as a software producer I can clearly make a statement - in the age of AI that shouldn't be a big issue. It shouldn't be a big issue. So to answer the question, I think that needs to be solved anyhow.

And yes, ad hoc pricing - and that's also the fear - the European Alternative Fuels Infrastructure regulation already today requires non-discriminatory pricing, so not discriminating between different users or between different payment methods. That has grown into an issue, notably in Germany, where some players have such a huge price difference between what they charge users based on their own app-based payment system and those that are either paying ad hoc or using a roaming partner. I think that shouldn't be in place.

So ultimately I think it's the market that needs to get its act together and sort it out. And maybe a little bit of legal action here and there might help shape that, and probably also a little bit of policy and regulatory clarification - maybe some of that might be diffused in the current regulation. So that's one part. But then the second part - even there I think the MSP needs to evolve into a much more stacked services provider, not just delivering the invoice at the end of the month.

But also providing the added value of telling you when is the best time to charge, what is the best location to charge, how can we help you with route planning, how can we help you access the best prices by nudging you - and that's also what DEW Power has been shaping. Once you're at the charging station, especially those with longer parking durations, can we shift some of that charging demand out of the peaks and to the valleys? Yeah, very interesting.

Just to stick one moment with the flex example you just gave: is it just DSOs that are influencing how flex is enabled in these examples in the Netherlands, or also intraday prices combined? Yes, also intraday and day-ahead prices combined. So it's stacking those, and again there you need a system that is capable of optimizing for multiple inputs that sometimes obviously have conflicting goals and prices.

And there again it helps if you can scale and have an aggregated fleet of users, so your charging profile and your charging needs might be different than mine, but having both of us combined into one balancing area can deliver those benefits. And how much - so you drive an EV, right? How much money can you save as an EV driver in the Netherlands today if you go to an AC charger?

So for like a night - or I don't know how it works, whether you can do it daily at specific moments only - yeah, so I happen to use one of DEW Power's smart charging solutions on the public charging station in my street, and it cuts my charging bill. Let's say from the €20 I would pay for the charge I need, it gives me maybe €2 in benefits, so 10%, which is really nice to have.

So it's not like it turns into something that is then free, because there are obviously still costs. But it's significant, especially if you look at it for a full year. And it's also the beginning, and that was also a good segue to V2G or bi-directional charging, which makes the whole thing even more complicated, but also more interesting. The holy grail, yeah - and there you probably need to retrofit, so that's the key challenge always. Let's tackle that one first, so the tech.

The tech challenges - I guess you need to retrofit the chargers if you wanted to do V2G at your home, the same charger you're doing, yeah. And so that's one key challenge with the retrofitting. Is there even a plan already in the Netherlands, as you're always thinking ahead, of doing such a thing? Well, there is a plan, and I would say there were already sort of requirements on certain charging stations, certain tenders, to be capable of bi-directional charging, but actually.

Too early. So I would say that's a stranded investment, because if you see how the technical standard has evolved - so the basis was ISO 15118-20, well now there's an Amendment 1 that more clearly defines how AC bi-directional charging would work. Also under development are European grid codes that shape the responsibilities between the car, the inverter in the car, and the charging station. So if you look at it, some of that was maybe too early, because we first need to get to a first deployment and the first market for bi-directional charging before we can actually.

Mandate it and scale that functionality. I do also think that the prospect of V2G and bi-directional charging sometimes obscures the immediate and much larger opportunity we already have with unidirectional smart charging. So you think there's still so much to be done in one direction that we shouldn't think too much ahead to bi-directional? Well, it's both, because we still need to work on bi-directional charging and there are still many hurdles that need to be tackled - some of that related especially to.

How to access markets, how to access the value, how to make sure that grid operators can actually utilize that flexibility, and reward flexibility that contributes to the viability of a V2G business case. So how do you then look at Utrecht? I think it's one of the world's most advanced projects in the sense of V2G at scale, supposedly. Have you ever also been a beneficiary of that, or what's the constraint, or how do they make it work already today? Well.

They make it work with a car-sharing fleet, so it's a captive fleet, which is great because I think that helps make it much less complex - it's one type of OEM, one type of carmaker. But also there's basically a single operator of that fleet, so from their system you can pull all the data on when different vehicles are being needed. You have a single source of information. It becomes obviously much more complex if you would include private cars, so it's not working for private cars.

It works with a captive fleet, and there it is working. And I think that's also where it's already interesting - households again: you have the single car, single house, single charger. I think those are the first use cases for bi-directional charging where already today, 2026, 2027, we'll see the action and we'll see the benefits. Very cool. But they have one make of vehicles and one make of chargers that has all the aforementioned.

Grid codes and standards that are required, and I guess the DSO also - or the utility on site - there's one player, right? So the DSO created for them this access to a flexibility mechanism, so they are able to trade basically that volume and be rewarded for that flexibility that they have in moving loads, or basically discharging, to peak times. Just the same DSO and Intraday combination that we discussed earlier. It's a very interesting example. I mean, Utrecht - I need to go there eventually.

Also the largest bike parking in the world, I think, right? I mean, if people cycle, their car has even more flexibility - if you don't need your car, the car is just parked there all the time. Use it as battery storage eventually, yeah. So, one more question on geography: next to the Netherlands, which country do you see as actually really leading in flexibility, in EV in particular? Well, Denmark is fascinating - how many of the EV charging ecosystem players are delivering.

Services to the grid, to the TSO actually - so we've never talked about the TSO so far, right. I find it fascinating how so many of the EVs that are being charged in Denmark, whether that's at a workplace or residential or even public, are being aggregated, and that volume is being used to deliver some of those real-time services. Yeah, very cool. Denmark was also very early in doing those types of things, as far as I remember. Yeah, and maybe - I mean there are so many more topics, but I think we will have to do other episodes at this point.

So just to keep the episode at some length: are there any topics next to what we discussed in the beginning - affordability and CPO pricing - that are interesting for fleets and private charging, that you think are worth highlighting, that you also find particularly exciting and that fleets should look into? So I think two things come to mind. For fleets, the whole topic of energy management, of grid capacity, of the various energy markets that we discussed.

It's something they probably will have never heard of or never interacted with, so there is a huge gap. Not necessarily that they need to become energy experts, but there is a strong need for market roles in helping fleets navigate that space - or not only navigate, but actually become an active participant in it. So that is a market role which is really important: being the bridge between that complexity. We touched upon a bit of the surface of that complexity, but it's even more complex.

Also on the logistics side, I'm not an expert in fleet disposition or route planning, etc. - that's another type of complexity where you also obviously see a need for solutions. Bringing that together is what we need, and with "what we need" I mean as a society, because being able to tap into that flexibility potential is really bringing down costs for a fleet operator. It's really delivering on the TCO improvement promise of electrification.

It is enabled by electrification and by enabling flexibility, but it also brings some costs down for everyone in the energy system - not even talking about all the environmental and health benefits of electrification and getting rid of diesel. Really being able to use flexibility is something that benefits both a fleet operator as well as the wider society. So in other words, it's a call to action: hey, fleet operators, don't worry, even if we hinted at many topics that sounded too complicated.

There are people like us, by the way, that are simplifying stuff for you, and there is big potential for you, but also for society, if you really dare to now engage in these types of topics, right? And I would also say for all the market actors in the e-mobility space, also again highlighting where you started with the quote.

They need to define what they want to do themselves, or how to enable a connection to others that can deliver that value, because I think that much of that value can also be delivered through collaboration. So we need to get to a much more collaborative system, a system that is able to communicate well, and where I mean communication more on both a technical level but also a commercial level. We need to be able to connect several building blocks, and some of those market roles or market players

need to consider whether they want to do it all themselves, which can have certain benefits, or where they would need specialized players to deliver that. All right, with that, I think also on this collaborative call to action, we are very much the same believers in collaboration at all levels, tech and business. I just say thank you, and hopefully let's do more again. Yap made a point about peaks that deserve much more attention and nuance. Not every peak is equally bad.

A charging peak that lines up with a solar peak can actually help the grid, and some of the early demand charges inside network tariffs simply flatten one peak and create a second, bigger one later. His call to the industry is to show and tell, quantify how much volume you can shift and how well you can shape it, because grid operators need evidence before they treat flexibility as a resource they can rely on. I also liked how tangible the benefit already is.

Yap uses a smart charging service on the public charger in his own street, and it takes around €2 off a €20 charge - small per session, real over a year. On vehicle-to-grid, he was refreshingly sober. It works today in captive fleets like in Utrecht, with one carmaker and operator, one source of data. It does not fully work for private cars yet, and the excitement around it can obscure much bigger prizes like we have with unidirectional smart charging. So if you take one thing from the episode, go and demonstrate what grid flexibility can actually do in numbers. Thanks for listening.

S2 Ep. 9: Jaap Burger, independent expert on EV grid integration | flexibility, grid congestion, the cost of public charging and V2G

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