Meters for EV charging
A charger cannot balance a load it cannot see. Something has to tell the platform what the rest of the building is drawing right now, and that something is a meter. These are the meters and P1 dongles Plugchoice reads, and how each one gets its numbers out.
Four ways a meter reaches the platform
- P1 and HAN
- The smart meter your grid operator already installed has a customer port: P1 in the Netherlands and Belgium, HAN in the Nordics. A dongle plugs into it and reads the whole connection, all phases, import and export, without an electrician touching the fuse box. It is the cheapest and fastest way to get load balancing working in a home.
- CT clamps
- Where there is no customer port, split-core clamps go around the main tails and measure current without breaking the circuit. Nothing has to be switched off to fit them, which is why they are the fallback on older installations and on the German and French markets. They measure current, not a settlement-grade energy total, so they steer load balancing but never a bill.
- Modbus RTU / TCP
- A DIN-rail meter on an RS485 bus, polled over Modbus. This is the standard answer for a commercial board, a shared parking garage or a site with several charge points behind one connection: the meter sits in the panel, the bus runs to a gateway, and the readings arrive as registers rather than as a stream.
- In-line meters
- The load runs through the meter itself. That is what makes a reading legally defensible, so the MID and Eichrecht approved devices in the table below all work this way. If you are billing a driver per kWh in Germany, this is the only category that qualifies.
Supported meters
| Meter | Reads via | Connectivity | Notes | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chargee SparkyChargee B.V. | P1, HAN | WiFi 2.4GHz | (D)SMR4.0+ | Verified |
| Chargee FlintChargee B.V. | Modbus, P1, HAN | Ethernet RJ45, WiFi 2.4GHz, 4G (optional) | Modbus, HAN and P1 (SMR4.0+) | Verified |
| Xemex CSP1+Xemex N.V. | CT | P1 | In combination with Flint or Sparky (P1) | Verified |
| Eastron SDM72D-MEastron Europe Ltd | In-line | Modbus | In combination with Flint (Modbus); the Sparky has no Modbus input | Verified |
| Eastron SDM630MIDMBUSEastron Europe Ltd | In-line | Modbus | In combination with Flint (Modbus); the Sparky has no Modbus input | Supported |
| Eastron SDM72CTMEastron Europe Ltd | CT | Modbus | In combination with Flint (Modbus); the Sparky has no Modbus input | Supported |
| EMH Metering eHZB e-mocEMH Metering GmbH & Co. KG | In-line (basic meter, direct connection) | Optical (OKK-BKE-F RS232 / OKK-BKE-N RS485) | MID + national (Eichrecht) approved measuring capsule for e-mobility charging systems; ad-hoc charging billing (kWh and time) | Supported |
| NZR EcoCount SL+SNZR (Nordwestdeutsche Zaehlerrevision) | DIN-rail (4 modules) | RS485 Modbus RTU, M-Bus, S0 pulse | MID + national (Eichrecht) approved, integrated Security Controller signs meter readings for legally compliant EV charging billing (S.A.F.E. verifiable) | Supported |
Verified means we have run the meter against the platform ourselves. Supported means the integration is built and documented but the exact model has not passed through our own bench.
When the meter has to be MID or Eichrecht approved
Balancing a load and billing for it are two different jobs with two different legal bars. A CT clamp is fine for deciding how many amps a car may take. It is not fine for putting a number on an invoice that a driver could dispute. In Germany the Eichrecht rules go further than MID alone: the reading has to be signed at the point of measurement so the driver can verify the session afterwards, which is why the EMH and NZR devices below carry a signing controller rather than just an approval mark.
Plugchoice reads whichever of these is installed. The approval sits with the meter, not with the platform, so check the device's own certificate for the market you are billing in.
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All names, logos and trademarks on this page are the property of their respective owners. This page is published independently by Plugchoice and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of the companies listed. Every detail was taken from publicly available sources and from our own testing, and was accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Specifications and features change often, so please confirm the current details with the manufacturer before relying on them.