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Upgraded Open-Source EV Charging Software Stack Supports New and Legacy Apps

April 28, 2025

The Linux Foundation’s update to its open-source Charging Station Management System software stack enables most legacy station equipment to support smoother transactions and advanced features.

Lee Goldberg

Related To:

Electronic Design

The Linux Foundation’s LF Energy development group released its newest version the LF Energy CitrineOS project, a leading open-source Charging Station Management System (CSMS) software stack—it now supports Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) 1.6. This milestone extends CitrineOS’s compatibility, expanding the range of electric-vehicle (EV) chargers that can leverage its modular, extensible architecture.

CitrineOS already supported the newer OCPP 2.0.1. However, with most legacy chargers continuing to run 1.6, this update provides additional opportunities for charging station operators to take advantage of the tool.

Originally developed by S44 Energy and offered to LF Energy as an open-source initiative, CitrineOS is designed with modularity at its core. It consists of logically separated modules that align with OCPP 2.0.1 and now includes comprehensive support for OCPP 1.6, the widely adopted standard for EV charger communication. This update helps ensure seamless message handling across multiple OCPP protocols, furthering the platform’s flexibility and industry applicability.

The CitrineOS 1.6 release makes other key enhancements, including:

New dynamic UI: A redesigned, operator-friendly user interface facilitates more efficient charger management. The new UI moves away from a general content management system, introducing a specialized EV charging network management experience with detailed views for:
- Authorizations
- Transactions
- Charging stations
- Locations
Technical Improvements:
- Addition of GraphQL into CitrineOS-Core for enhanced data querying and flexibility.
- Refactoring of CitrineOS-Core to seamlessly support multiple OCPP protocols.
- Improved file storage flexibility, including support for S3-compatible MinIO.
- Deprecation of Directus CMS as a core dependency, reducing complexity and improving performance.

For more information on CitrineOS and how to get involved, go here.

About the Author

Lee Goldberg | Contributing Editor

Lee Goldberg is a self-identified “Recovering Engineer,” Maker/Hacker, Green-Tech Maven, Aviator, Gadfly, and Geek Dad. He spent the first 18 years of his career helping design microprocessors, embedded systems, renewable energy applications, and the occasional interplanetary spacecraft. After trading his ‘scope and soldering iron for a keyboard and a second career as a tech journalist, he’s spent the next two decades at several print and online engineering publications.

Lee’s current focus is power electronics, especially the technologies involved with energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy. This dovetails with his coverage of sustainable technologies and various environmental and social issues within the engineering community that he began in 1996. Lee also covers 3D printers, open-source hardware, and other Maker/Hacker technologies.

Lee holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Thomas Edison College, and participated in a colloquium on technology, society, and the environment at Goddard College’s Institute for Social Ecology. His book, “Green Electronics/Green Bottom Line - A Commonsense Guide To Environmentally Responsible Engineering and Management,” was published by Newnes Press.

Lee, his wife Catherine, and his daughter Anwyn currently reside in the outskirts of Princeton N.J., where they masquerade as a typical suburban family.

Lee also writes the regular PowerBites series.