What is FCR-D in the context of EV charging?

FCR-D Up is the Nordic reserve that responds automatically, within seconds, when a large source of production is suddenly lost, such as a nuclear unit or a wind farm tripping offline. For a charging network, the reserve is charging power that can be reduced on command. Transmission system operators pay for that capacity being available, not for how often it is used.

Is my charging network large enough to take part?

Possibly, and it depends on the market. Finland’s minimum FCR-D bid is 1 MW, while Sweden’s is 0.1 MW for FCR-D Up, and smaller resources can be pooled into one portfolio to reach the threshold. What counts is the flexibility you can reliably deliver, not the combined rated power of your chargers, so the honest answer comes from looking at your charging-session data.

Do I need bidirectional chargers?

No. FCR-D Up is delivered by reducing charging power, not by feeding energy back to the grid, so standard smart chargers are enough. Bidirectional, or vehicle-to-grid (V2G), hardware is not required.

Can I participate without new hardware?

In most cases, yes. Many existing networks can take part with their current chargers, provided control performance and metering meet the transmission system operator’s requirements. Your Virta contact will review your site list and confirm before anything is committed.

Will my drivers notice when FCR-D activates?

Rarely. You set the maximum power drop yourself, and in practice reductions happen a few times a day and typically last well under a minute. Across Virta’s own portfolio in 2025, only three events in the whole year called for more than half of the contracted capacity, and each lasted a few minutes.

Does this work the same way in Finland and Sweden?

No, and the differences matter for the business case. The two countries run different procurement models and different minimum bid sizes, and Sweden also requires the electricity reseller to sit in the chain, which means a centralised electricity supplier or a willingness to move to the one your service provider works with. Finland is also moving to hourly-only procurement from 2027. Operators in Norway or the Danish bidding zones should check their own transmission system operator’s current rules.

How much revenue can my network earn?

Revenue depends on the capacity you can reliably deliver, how many hours are accepted, the prices in your market and your commercial terms. Charging portfolios trade in the hourly market, so published annual-auction prices are useful as a direction of travel rather than an earnings forecast. Virta works on a revenue-sharing model, which means the net figure depends on the agreement as much as on the market price.

Is building a CPMS cheaper than buying one?

Rarely, once you count all three TCO layers over five years, and especially once you count the energy revenue a good platform earns back. The upfront build is the smallest line. The recurring cost is a permanent team maintaining eight subsystems, plus the operational and missed-revenue layers. Start from the whole cost, net of energy earnings, not the licence fee.

How does energy management change the TCO?

A platform with energy and load management turns your chargers into a grid asset. Load shifting avoids grid-upgrade costs, flexibility markets such as FCR-D pay recurring revenue, and CO2 cashback converts renewable surplus into income. That revenue offsets the platform cost, so the right platform can pay for part, or in favourable cases all, of its own running cost. Build your own and you forgo this unless you also build the energy-market integrations.

What exactly should I build versus buy in a hybrid model?

Buy the undifferentiated core: OCPP connection management, payments, roaming, uptime and monitoring, energy management and compliance. Build only what differentiates you: pricing and packaging, your app or portal, data products. Confirm the platform exposes real APIs and webhooks so you can build on top without forking it.

Who handles driver support if I build my own CPMS?

You do, around the clock, in every language your network serves. A build business case that budgets for developers but not for staffed phone lines, a technical second line and named account support has understated the recurring cost substantially. On a bought platform this capacity is shared across the vendor's customer base, which is why it costs a fraction of running it alone.

Will buying a platform lock me into one vendor?

It can, if the platform is not built on open standards. Insist on OCPP for your chargers and open roaming protocols, confirm you can move chargers to another management system without replacing hardware, and check the API surface so you keep the option to build. Open standards are what make buying and hybrid reversible.

What happens if I do not keep up with AFIR?

Non-compliant public charge points fall foul of EU rules on a timeline: contactless ad-hoc payment and price transparency from April 2024 for new charge points of 50 kW or more, extending to all public points of that size from January 2027. Whether you build or buy, your platform has to deliver these, and buying makes keeping current the vendor's obligation.