Overview
OCPP is a comprehensive protocol that defines control of all charging station aspects from a compatible cloud.
Our charging stations thus far has been implemented with Zaptec’s proprietary protocol for integrating with our backend, and our protocol is fundamentally different from OCPP.
While it is possible to control our chargers through OCPP, our cloud OCPP solution has not been designed or implemented to be a full-fledged OCPP-J 1.6 solution.
OCPP integration is mainly aimed at external payment operators, methods required for session management and payment are implemented.
We use a cloud based OCPP solution to fully utilize our phase and load balancing features.
How to use
In order to communicate through OCPP with a Zaptec charging system, the partner must
- Have a Zapcloud account and appropriate admin of charging installation
- Configure installation to their online OCPP-J 1.6 compatible server
- Configure installation with correct OCPP connection details and authentication settings
For a full list of methods, please see our integration document or our OCPP-supported methods page here.
Authorization
Authorization is done using OCPP-J 1.6 Core. This is set per installation within the Zaptec Portal.
For steps on how to configure an installation to communicate over OCPP, read here.
Zaptec Portal and OCPP Configuration
OCPP configuration options are found in the installation details page when the installation is configured with OCPP authorization.
OCPP-J 1.6 authentication setting is used to integrate Zaptec charging stations with 3rd party OCPP-J 1.6 cloud solutions
URL
The websocket URL used by chargers for connecting to the OCPP cloud. {deviceId} will be replaced with the charger’s device Id (serial no.) when connecting.
Example:
For charger ZCS000143, ws://ocpp.example.com/devices/{deviceId} will at runtime be expanded to ws://ocpp.example.com/devices/ZCS000143.
Initial device password
For large installations it may not be practical to manually set external password on each charging station. The initial password is a common password used by all charging stations in the installation, and allows the OCPP cloud to remotely set a new password after the initial connection. This process is described in chapter 6.2.2. Charge point authentication of the OCPP-J 1.6 specification.
Default id tag
ID tag used in StartTransaction when authentication is disabled.
Note: If no default id tag is provided, an empty string is used.
Charge Point Settings
When OCPP is enabled for the installation, the following configuration options are enabled for each charge point
URL
Used when the device serial no. cannot be used when connecting to the OCPP cloud. Specify the full URL the charge point will use when connecting.
Password
The password used when connecting the charging station to OCPP
Send WebSocket Pint (30s)
By default, WebSocket ping is disabled from charger. If connecting to an OCPP cloud that does not provide WebSocket ping functionality, charger ping should be enabled through setting OCPP configuration key WebSocketPingInterval to a value greater than 0 (ping interval in seconds).
Enable verbose OCPP logging (24 hours)
Used to include MeterValues and Heartbeat to the OCPP logs for 24 hours