Questions on charging technology, infrastructure and billing

An electric charge point is a facility where electric vehicles recharge their battery. A distinction is made between controlled and uncontrolled points: uncontrolled ones release power the moment a cable is plugged in, which can cause unplanned peaks on the grid. Controlled points manage access, allow remote maintenance and billing, and can be integrated into energy management.

The charge point operator (CPO) runs the charge points — hardware, electricity, location. The e-mobility provider (EMP) issues charging cards and holds the contract with the driver. Roaming connects the two: a driver with an EMP card can charge at a CPO, and the money flows back through the roaming platform.

The RFID card authorises the session at the charge point. In the backend it is linked to a user, a vehicle and a tariff. Business customers obtain cards through their tenant account; end customers order them through the ENIO portal. In B2B use the card cost is included in the app fee.

There are five routes: an internal RFID card with no charge, an ENIO or white-label charging card, a third-party roaming card, QR direct payment in the app, and debit or credit card at the ENIO Payment Station. Which applies depends on who you are and where you charge.

It depends on how they pay. There are exactly two worlds. If they charge ad hoc — with a debit or credit card at the payment station, or by QR code in the app — you set the price, because in that moment you sell directly to the driver. If they use a roaming card, the price is set by the mobility provider (EMP) whose card they hold. In that business you are not the seller to the driver but the supplier to the EMP.

Because the customer relationship belongs to the EMP, not to you. The driver has a contract with their card provider, not with you. Between you and the EMP there is a B2B price per kWh — the amount the EMP pays you for the session, and that is the only figure you negotiate. What the EMP makes of it for its own customer is their calculation: a base fee, their own mark-up, possibly a blocking fee and their roaming costs on top. The roaming protocol OCPI carries tariffs and charge detail records between the systems, but it does not tell any EMP what to charge its customer.

The bilaterally agreed amount per kWh, less the discount fee. With ENIO that amount sits in the backend for every single transaction — together with the price the EMP actually paid and the discount fee. That is what we mean by transparent billing: you see not only what reaches you but also what happened before. For larger customers we deliberately do not offer guaranteed fixed prices, because then the spread stays with whoever settles instead of with you.

Because nobody stands in between. Charging ad hoc, your company sells directly to the driver — there is no EMP holding the customer relationship and no roaming contract dictating the price. You set the price in the backend, the change takes effect at the charge point immediately, and you see the revenue directly. That is why a payment station pays off even with the bank transaction fee: the pricing power you gain is usually worth more than the discount fee you would save.

Free, yes; arbitrary, no. AFIR requires ad-hoc prices to be reasonable, transparent and non-discriminatory — you may not put ad-hoc users at a disadvantage against contract customers without an objective reason. For public charge points of 50 kW and above put into service from 13 April 2024, the ad-hoc price must in principle be stated per kWh; an additional time-based blocking fee is permitted. From 1 January 2027 this applies to every public charge point of 50 kW or more, whenever it was built. Below 50 kW other price components are allowed, but they must be clearly visible before charging starts.

In Austria, in the national charge point register. The Ladepunkt-Daten-Verordnung (Federal Law Gazette II No. 257/2024) obliges operators of publicly accessible charge points to report static and dynamic data to the regulator E-Control — including the ad-hoc price broken down by price components, and current availability. On ladestellen.at every driver sees this before setting off. Points offered free of charge are exempt from the price reporting. ENIO supplies this data from the backend; you maintain nothing by hand.

Because the two prices rest on different calculations. The roaming price is a wholesale price: the EMP brings volume, holds a contract and therefore pays less per kWh. The ad-hoc price is a retail price for the occasional driver — no contract, no volume, card payment fees included. Both make commercial sense: roaming fills the charge points broadly, ad hoc brings the higher margin per session.

Yes, and that is the normal case. Employees charge internally at €0.00 posted to a cost centre, guests at their own rate, tenants at a third, external drivers ad hoc at the public price. In the backend the price depends on charge point, user group and time window. The AFIR non-discrimination rules apply only towards ad-hoc customers — within your own user groups you are free.

With an offer to all you publish one price through a roaming platform that any EMP can accept. Convenient — and it means the same price for the discount provider as for the premium fleet card. Whoever sells expensively to their own customers keeps the difference. With bilaterally negotiated contracts that spread reaches you — and a low-price provider still gets terms that work for them, instead of driving past your charge points.

Then the question of fixed versus flexible reimbursement comes up. With the flexible option the price ENIO has agreed with each provider applies — yield varies, but the whole roaming network stays reachable. With fixed reimbursement you receive a guaranteed amount, but every card provider whose agreed price is below it drops out. We recommend the flexible option and go through the figures with you: a smaller amount usually beats a charge point standing empty.