Joint Office of Energy and Transportation and Linux Foundation Energy to Advance Electric Vehicle Charging Interoperability with EVerest Open-Source Platform

June 11, 2024

In January 2024, the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (Joint Office) announced a partnership with Linux Foundation (LF) Energy to build open-source software tools to support communications between electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and other systems through LF Energy’s EVerest project. Today, the Joint Office announced that the March release of EVerest includes support for the communication protocol requirements defined in the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Standards and Requirements and enables Plug and Charge functionality so drivers can simply connect their vehicle to a charger to authenticate, charge, and pay.

“By providing a unified framework and fostering collaboration, the EVerest project empowers industry stakeholders to accelerate the transition to zero-emission transportation," emphasized Sarah Hipel, Standards and Reliability Program Manager at the Joint Office. “EVerest simplifies compliance while providing a scalable, interoperable foundation for innovation in EV charging.”

Joint Office open-source software experts are now working with the EVerest community to advance production-ready deployments of the software by early adopters like Enteligent, Jule, and Voltpost. These EV charging ecosystem players are using EVerest to advance a variety of pioneering projects, including:

• Enteligent Inc. develops DC-coupled electric vehicle service equipment (EVSE) and solar power optimization technologies. The company’s first EVSE product, the TLC-EV charger, uses EVerest for its full-stack environment for charging management, facilitating communication standards between the car, charging station, and cloud while balancing power from local renewables across multiple plugged-in vehicles for a seamless user experience.

• Jule is currently working on their ISO 15118 implementation leveraging the EVerest framework. Their team has been able to integrate the code base into their hardware development kit and have achieved both a board implementation of control pilot and supported state machine and established an initial charger to vehicle SLAC communication. They have also initiated vehicle to grid (V2G) communication with the vehicle simulator using EVerest modules. This has saved their team the trouble of writing their own V2G framework by leveraging a trusted open-source resource.

• Voltpost is developing Level 2 chargers that retrofit lampposts to deploy chargers more easily to densely populated urban areas. Voltpost has been working with the EVerest community over the past several months to understand how to deploy it to production. Voltpost has been using EVerest as a resource and contributing to the open-source community to improve the developer experience for all.

EVerest provides a focal point for the electric mobility community to collaborate on the development of fundamental communication protocols. The proactive involvement of such a diverse range of companies in the EVerest project underscores the industry’s collective recognition of the urgent need for a low cost, interoperable, and more reliable EV charging infrastructure to create a better driver experience while enabling companies to accelerate the release of innovative new features on a secure foundation. The integration of EVerest also accelerates the release of new features, modifications, and charger customizations faster than other software options, providing a reliable and future-proof charging solution.

The EVerest reference implementation is available on GitHub for EV charging industry players to leverage for compliance and interoperability. Additionally, single-line demos showcasing the functionality of the implementation are also available. Members of the Joint Office Standards and Reliability team will be at the CharIN Testival and Conference North America in Cleveland, Ohio, this week to discuss EVerest and EV charging standards.

As the journey towards a cleaner, more sustainable future advances, the Joint Office remains committed to driving innovation and progress within the EV charging ecosystem through collaborative initiatives like EVerest.