On October 2, 2024, Enel X announced the shuttering of its North American operations. Nine days later, customer service was discontinued, though server operations will continue for an indeterminate period. The company’s EV charging business went up for sale and bids closed on October 22, 2024. As of this writing, no additional information about the outcome of the auction or plans for server continuity is available.
While this news is not exactly reassuring to those with Enel X charge stations, it means that there is still time to migrate your organization’s Enel X Way JuiceBox 40 EV chargers to a new Charge Station Management System (CSMS). No functionality is lost yet, but that’s only a question of time. Given the uncertainty, it’s important to make a sound plan that will set you up for long-term success to guard against the risk and possibility that Enel X Way servers will shut down permanently once the business is sold.
In our view, there are three ways forward for JuiceBox system owners:
- OCPP platform migration
Dozens of OCPP-based Charge Station Management platforms have come out of the woodwork since the news of Enel X’s withdrawal from the North American market. The companies behind them are making various claims about their ability to help desperate system owners move the management of their JuiceBox chargers to a new cloud management platform. Some of these companies are genuinely prepared and have processes in place to manage such a migration. But many are not.
Liberty Plugins is also a company with a universal OCPP back-end. We are not, however, offering this back-end migration service because we do not believe it to be a viable long-term solution. Many users will be tempted by these CSMS solution providers due to their low cost and apparent simplicity – but they are not without potential pitfalls. Among them:
- Partner risk. What credentials and track record does the solution provider have? How long have they been in business, and can you be certain they will be there to support you long after you transition to their platform? If your charger is repointed to a third-party’s OCPP server and the Enel X backend service is discontinued, it’s possible that you will not be able to migrate again. If a migration is unsuccessful, you could be left in a worse situation than before. Therefore, choose a partner that provides a guarantee or warranty for their services.
- Hidden cost. Credible software-only vendors offering migration services will probably require onsite personnel to update firmware for each charger in your network. This will involve electricians or technicians working billable hours. Be sure you understand what’s involved in migration, apart from a new SaaS subscription, before going this route.
- OCPP platform migration could result in new quirks and undesirable behaviors. Your equipment will be running experimental, potentially unstable firmware, connected to a third-party server via wi-fi, with no official customer service available.
- Rip and Replace
For some organizations, it may be worth the time and expense of tearing out their Enel X equipment and replacing it completely – but consider all costs first. Most equipment providers on the market also charge more than Enel X did for services. This approach is by far the most expensive, requiring significant equipment and labor expense in addition to a new service subscription.
- Liberty Plugins Hydra™
Liberty Plugins is the only manufacturer of a hardware charge station management system that can control all versions of the Enel X JuiceBox 40 EV charge stations as they are today. Rather than alter the firmware of each charger at your facility, a Liberty Plugins Hydra™ can be seamlessly retrofitted to your system to connect your existing chargers (as well as new ones), to the Liberty Access Platform for access control, user management, monetization, and reporting. This approach offers the following benefits:
- A partner you can trust. Liberty Plugins has been in business since 2009. We invented the category of managed EV charging and are not going anywhere anytime soon.
- Approachable cost structure. Liberty Plugins has a product tailored to workplaces and multi-unit apartments where you need to control access to chargers and bill for use, but don’t want or need to profit from their charging.
- Flexible and upgradeable. With Liberty, when it’s time to replace your Enel X chargers, you can do so without changing how you manage your charging system. And, if you want to add more chargers of any type, whether Level-2 or DC fast chargers, they’ll be right at home on the Liberty Access Platform.