Open Charge Alliance opens OCPP 2.1 testing in its OCTT Professional tool

The Open Charge Alliance (OCA), the body behind the OCPP protocol, announced on October 12, 2026 that OCPP 2.1 testing is now available. It runs in OCTT Professional, the paid edition of the OCA's compliance test tool, which already tests OCPP 1.6 and 2.0.1. Plugchoice runs OCPP 1.6J on chargers of any brand today.

The OCA lists the new capabilities that can now be tested as ISO 15118-20 support, bidirectional power transfer and improved smart charging. The tool was built with the OCA's Golden SUT partners, the reference chargers and backends it tests against. OCPP 2.1 and its test cases were published in 2025. OCTT Professional now checks an implementation against them, and the OCA says this lets developers prepare for certification. The announcement gives no certification date and no pricing.

Bidirectional charging needs the charger, the car and the backend to agree on one protocol, and a common test is how a 2.1 charger from one maker and a backend from another get to work together. Our OCPP 2.0.1 and 2.1 reference lists every message, including the ones 2.1 added.

Sources: Open Charge Alliance, October 12, 2026: New milestone: OCPP 2.1 testing is now available, Open Charge Alliance: OCTT test tool.