Electromobility — From the Beginning
How I got into electromobility — from an RWE student project to building eMobility products at innogy.
People sometimes ask me how I ended up working in electromobility. The honest answer is: a student job that turned into something much bigger.
The Entry Point
In 2014, I joined RWE Effizienz GmbH as a working student. At the time, eMobility was still mostly a pilot project category — a handful of charge points at company car parks, some strategic decks about the future, and not much else. But even then, the technical depth was real.
My first project involved EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) infrastructure: connecting charge points to backend systems, testing OCPP protocol implementations, and developing a smartphone app for finding and using charging stations.
The project ran from February 2014 to October 2015. By the end of it, I had a rough mental model of the entire eMobility stack — from the physical connector at the pole to the billing system on the backend.
What Made eMobility Different
Working on an emerging technology is different from working on mature software. The standards were in flux. OCPP was being actively developed. The interoperability between different charger manufacturers and backends was inconsistent. You couldn't just look things up; you had to figure them out.
That environment taught me something useful: when there are no established answers, the ability to prototype, test, and iterate quickly is more valuable than subject-matter expertise.
From RWE to innogy
When RWE restructured and spun off innogy (the renewables and network division), I stayed connected to that world. By 2017, I was working as Project Manager Electromobility at innogy SE — and by 2018, as a Senior PM and Product Owner on the innogy eMobility Solutions team.
The shift from infrastructure projects to product ownership changed the work significantly. Instead of testing OCPP implementations, we were building the software that drivers and operators actually used: the whitelabel B2C portal, the Station Masterdata system, the authentication platform.
Why eMobility Still Matters
Years later, the fundamentals remain the same. There are more charge points, the standards have matured, and the cars have improved dramatically. But the core problem hasn't changed: making electric transport convenient, reliable, and economically viable for a broad population.
I still follow the space closely. It's one of the areas where technology, energy policy, and behaviour change intersect in ways that are genuinely complex — and genuinely worth solving.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is OCPP (Open Charge Point Protocol)?+
OCPP is an open communication standard between electric vehicle charge points (EVSE) and backend management systems. It defines how a charger reports status, receives commands, handles authentication, and manages sessions. OCPP 1.6 was the dominant version during 2014–2020; OCPP 2.0.1 has since superseded it with improved security and smart charging features.
What is EVSE?+
EVSE stands for Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment — the technical term for the infrastructure that delivers electricity to an EV. It includes the charge point hardware, cabling, connectors, and the control systems that manage the session. The term is broader than 'charger' and encompasses everything from a domestic wallbox to a public fast charger.
How did the German electromobility market develop between 2014 and 2020?+
In 2014, Germany's public charging network was small, fragmented, and inconsistent. OCPP implementations varied between manufacturers, roaming between networks was rare, and billing standards were still being defined. By 2020, innogy, EnBW, and others had built out national networks, interoperability had improved significantly, and the number of registered EVs had grown from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand.