AHP-Firmware version 2.4.0

Firmware release 2.4.0 of the Alfen Hardware Platform (AHP) is a release that incorporates several general improvements, stability improvements, bug fixes and new features. The main new features are:

• OCPP 1.6 Smart Charging

• Active Load Balancing (ALB) support for Modbus TCP/IP, P1 DSMR and TIC

New features

OCPP 1.6 Smart Charging

Our OCPP module Smart Charging is revised, to match the most recent implementation best practices including support for ChargePointMaxProfile.
This helps customers that use OCPP 1.6 Smart Charging for management of their chargers in relation to the grid congestion measures (like Netbewust laden in the Netherlands) or in (remote managed) charging plaza’s.

Active Load Balancing

Active Load Balancing (ALB), our functionality to prevent unwanted overload and optimize the use of the grid connection, is now supported on AHP. The support for ALB in this release covers the use of external energy meters using the Modbus TCP/IP protocol, the direct wired connection to the serial P1 DSMR 4 and 5 smart meter as used in The Netherlands and Belgium and the direct wired connection to the Linky smart meter using the TIC protocol. For Modbus TCP/IP, the Siemens PAC2200 energy meter is supported as a preset and customizable registers are supported. Both TIC Historical and TIC Standard are supported, where the charging station will detect automatically which variant of the TIC protocol the connected Linky smart meter uses.

Improvements

• Improved LED behaviour for soft and hard errors for Twin 5 charging stations:

  • Errors that can be resolved by the user (soft errors) are indicated by red-blue blinking;

  • Errors that require intervention (hard error) are indicated by red blinking.

• Breathing LED behaviour updated to match authorization method for Eve Single Plus and Eve Double Plus.

• Improved connection caching on local maintenance interface when using the ACE Service Installer (version 4.2.0 or higher)

• Improved ISO15118 implementation for authorization and charging session management.

• Improved functionality to retrieve logs with the ACE Service Installer to reduce download time.

• Temporary users can now set the charger password.

• Added functionality to clear all personal and customized sensitive security parameters with information that may contain NFC UID using the ACE Service Installer (version 4.2.0 or higher)

  • Transaction history

  • Token data

  • Charging profiles

  • Authorization cache

  • Backoffice keys

  • Local lists

  • Reset owner password

• Error 406 now reports measured values in error message: "CP value out of range actual: <lower>V / <upper>V"

• Various cyber security improvements

• Added phase imbalance detection per socket with configurable current limiting. In Germany this is more commonly known as Schieflast. Power factor detection will not work for single phase cars if phase imbalance configuration MaxImbalanceCurrent is enabled and set to value lower than 14A.

Bug fixes

• Fixed an issue of accepting invalid combinations of StationMaxCurrent and SocketMaxCurrent when Standard Load Balancing and/or Smart Charging Network is not enabled.

• Fixed an issue where charging stations would not have any owner password to fallback to if the Smart Controller Board was replaced.

• Fixed an issue where the buzzer was not working on Eve Single Plus and Eve Double Plus products.

• Fixed an issue where the relay check was skipped on ISO15118 charging session management.

• Fixed an issue where a firmware rollback following a failed firmware update could corrupt databases.

• Fixed an issue where fixed cable charging stations may not continue charging after recovering from a power outage.

• Fixed an issue where charger was not accessible anymore using the ACE Service Installer when using a device running Windows 10 or older.

• Fixed an issue where the charging station would not unlock a cable after the end of a transaction. This would happen in case that the transaction was de-authorized within seconds after the start the transaction.
   

 Back-office communication changes

• Fixed an issue where the limitations were ignored if it has a decimal value in TxDefaultProfile.

• Fixed an issue where charger may not initiate messages to an OCPP2.0.1 back-office if a message took longer than 1 second to transmit.

• Fixed an issue where a rounding ambiguity between the meter value in the StartTransaction message and the subsequent MeterValue messages caused invalid transactions.
  Rounding of OCPP1.6 MeterValue fields is reduced from 6 to 3 decimals. Additionally, the default unit of these meter values has been changed from Wh / VAh to kWh / kVAh.

• Change default setting for TxEndedIntervals of the AlignedDataCtrlr and SampledDataCtrlr from 60 seconds to 0, to prevents sending be default a lot of meter values in every OCPP2.0.1 TransactionEvent ended message.

• Fixed issue where the timestamp in MeterValue messages in OCPP 1.6 would not be correct when Current.Offered or Temperature was configured as a measurand.

Known limitations

• Limited testing has been performed on Active Load Balancing using the TIC protocol.
  Please be mindful that there is an elevated risk for issues when using ALB with the Linky smart meter with this release. 
  In the next major release this functionality will be fully tested.

• The size of the export of log lines might be limited to the memory capability of the device running the ACE Service Installer.
  The ACE Service Installer will show a prompt when a log export is requested which is too large.

Due to cybersecurity requirements and database changes in recent releases, downgrades to older firmware versions are not supported on AHP.
Please view actual instructions on the update process on ‘How do I update the firmware on my charging station’.