Summary
For decades, the energy sector and the mobility sector evolved on separate tracks. Electrification has now merged them, and EV charging sites sit exactly where they meet. For charge point operators, that creates a new kind of asset: a vehicle that has a trip to make, but also a flexible load that can respond to imbalance prices, balancing markets and grid constraints. The question is no longer whether EV flexibility has value, but how CPOs can capture it reliably without compromising the driver.
In Episode 59 of The Charge Point Podcast, Christophe Lephilibert speaks with Cedric De Cauwer, professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and researcher at MOBI, the university's electromobility research centre, which is approaching 50 years of work in e-mobility. Cedric started his PhD at MOBI on EV range estimation and gradually moved to grid integration of electric vehicles, which is now his main research domain. His recent work applies reinforcement learning and AI to EV charging, co-located batteries and flexibility services.
The conversation covers what his research reveals about smart charging, the Belgian imbalance market, value stacking with co-located batteries, and why aFRR is particularly difficult for EVs. Cedric explains why the use case matters more than the market, why sites like long-term airport parking and truck depots are natural flexibility candidates, and what his new large-scale coordination project aims to solve. He closes with practical advice for CPOs from two perspectives: as a researcher and as a long-time EV driver.
What you'll learn
- How reinforcement learning applied to the Belgian imbalance market cut charging costs in simulations, and even reached negative charging prices.
- Why the driver is the defining variable in EV flexibility, and why every revenue gain has to be balanced against meeting the driver's charging needs.
- Why involving drivers is about more than financial incentives: reducing friction in the user interface and gradually building their understanding matters just as much.
- Why a co-located battery rarely pays off on a single use case such as peak shaving, and how value stacking multiple services improves the return on investment.
- Why aFRR remains lucrative but is especially hard for EVs, since capacity reservation clashes with unpredictable vehicle availability.
- Why the real potential lies in treating the EV as a mobility asset first, and using energy services to fulfil its charging needs in a smarter way.
- Which use cases make flexibility more predictable, from long-term airport parking to depots, compared with public charging.
- What it will take to coordinate tens of thousands of EVs at once, including aligning TSO and DSO needs and handling data exchange at scale.
Chapters
00:00 Intro: smart charging, AI and the 50% question
02:27 Cedric's origin story: from EV range estimation to grid integration
03:36 What sparked his interest in where mobility meets energy
05:30 Reinforcement learning in the Belgian balancing market
08:54 Negative charging prices and the driver trade-off
10:15 Involving and educating EV drivers
12:36 Co-located batteries and value stacking at charging sites
15:58 ChargePoint Radar break
16:25 The most lucrative ancillary services: aFRR vs the imbalance market
19:17 Treating the EV as a mobility asset first, energy asset second
22:24 What control and planning CPOs need for flexibility revenue
24:40 Airports as virtual power plants, and depot charging
25:36 Next research project: coordinating tens of thousands of EVs
28:56 Innovations to watch in the next 3 to 5 years, including V2G
31:39 Advice for CPOs from a researcher and a long-time EV driver
34:10 Outro and key takeaways
Notable quotes
"In our simulations, we even got to a negative price, meaning that we were earning to charge. However, at a slight cost, and that cost was not always being able to fully charge the vehicle." - Cedric De Cauwer
"Look first at the obvious one, the smart charging one, and do that on more scale. Increasing self-consumption, reducing peaks, peak shaving, arbitrage. These are low-hanging fruits." - Cedric De Cauwer
"As an EV driver, I would say reliability. Make your network reliable, make sure that it works all the time. That is what will make you stand out as a CPO." - Cedric De Cauwer
About the guest
Cedric De Cauwer is a professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and a researcher at MOBI, one of Europe's leading electromobility research centres, with a multidisciplinary team of more than 120 specialists. Trained as an electromechanical engineer, he completed his PhD at MOBI on the range estimation of electric vehicles before shifting his focus to the integration of EVs into the electricity grid. His research covers smart charging, vehicle-to-grid, co-located battery storage, flexibility markets and AI-based energy management, including a new project on large-scale coordination of EV charging for grid balancing and congestion management.
Cedric De Cauwer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cedric-de-cauwer-8ab22488/
MOBI, Vrije Universiteit Brussel: https://mobi.research.vub.be/
Related listening
For the operator side of imbalance-market arbitrage and co-located batteries in Belgium, listen to Episode 56 with Yuso.
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