Emerging Energy Management Use Cases for Car Charging – Hauke Feiertag & Simon Seres
Event Recap: LF Energy Summit Europe 2025
TL;DR
At LF Energy Summit Europe 2025, Hauke Feiertag and Simon Seres (chargebyte GmbH) presented how chargebyte is combining the open source EVerest software stack with its own IoT-based energy management platform to support solar charging, dynamic electricity tariffs, and emerging vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid use cases. The session demonstrated how embedding energy management functionality directly in charging hardware can simplify installation and make advanced charging features more accessible.
Why EV Charging Is Becoming an Energy Management Problem
The speakers framed EV charging as an increasingly important part of the energy transition. As solar generation expands and electricity prices become more dynamic, charging systems are being asked to do more than simply transfer power to a vehicle.
Feiertag highlighted the rapid growth of solar power and battery deployment and described electric vehicles as a source of flexibility that can absorb excess renewable generation and, in some cases, return energy to homes or the grid.
According to the presenters, this shift is driving demand for charging systems that can respond to local solar production, changing electricity prices, and bidirectional charging capabilities.
Why chargebyte Chose Open Source
Seres explained that chargebyte adopted EVerest as the application layer for its charging controllers after identifying the need for a modular software framework aligned with the company’s strategy.
The framework provides support for standards such as ISO 15118 and OCPP while allowing chargebyte to share maintenance efforts with a broader development community. The speakers emphasized that this approach reduces the burden of maintaining proprietary software and gives engineering teams more time to focus on new features.
Seres noted that chargebyte has deployed EVerest-based controllers in thousands of production installations.
Bringing Energy Management Into the Charger
To address growing interest in solar charging, dynamic tariffs, and bidirectional charging, chargebyte combined EVerest with its IoT-based energy management platform, resulting in a product called CB Energy.
The system runs locally on the charging controller and can also run on devices such as a Raspberry Pi. It connects to solar inverters, meters, and tariff APIs to optimize charging based on available solar generation and electricity prices.
During the demonstration, Seres showed how the system adjusted charging power in real time to match household solar production. The software also supports target state-of-charge settings, target departure times, and a simplified user experience designed to minimize installation and configuration complexity.
Looking Ahead: Bidirectional Charging and Open Collaboration
The presentation concluded with a discussion of vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid use cases, particularly DC-coupled bidirectional charging systems that are beginning to enter the market.
chargebyte also invited the community to collaborate on open sourcing its energy management software. The speakers noted that while many commercial products exist, they do not yet see an open source project serving the energy management sector in the same way EVerest serves EV charging software.
Their goal is to create a shared open source foundation that can run inside chargers, alongside chargers, or as standalone energy management systems.
AI Disclosure
This post used artificial intelligence tools for research, structural assistance, or grammatical refinement. The final content was reviewed, edited, and validated by human contributors to LF Energy to ensure accuracy and alignment with our community standards. We remain committed to transparency in the use of generative technologies within the open source ecosystem.
