We warmly welcome Frode Braaten as Sales & Country Manager for Norway!
We warmly welcome Frode Braaten as Sales & Country Manager for Norway! With an electrical engineer degree and having spent the last 10 years in the EV charging industry, Frode brings a wealth of experience and will be a perfect fit as ChargeNode establish itself on the Norwegian market.
–When I started in the industry, there were not many electric cars, but when the authorities set goals for electrification of the Norwegian private car fleet for 2025, my interest grew. I have had the pleasure of following and shaping this journey, but it has been commercially challenging to design good solutions at the same pace as the market, technology and standards have developed. To find the best solutions for the domestic market, I have worked with many European manufacturers of both AC and DC solutions. It was when doing some international due diligence that ChargeNode turned up with an exciting mindset on how to meet the need for charging based on an energy-efficient, scalable and sustainable model with a number of advantages: The ability to use available energy in a smart way to charge as many electric cars as possible, opportunity for many charging socket without everyone needing a charging box. Material and aesthetic expression that lasts longer than other solutions. Low operating and ownership costs which guarantee a scalable facility long term. As ChargeNode develops its own software and hardware, we can ensure industry leading functionality and operational stability for users. In addition, we have innovative founders combined an experienced team in Sweden who put their heart and soul into the development of the product and the company. When I got the chance to join, it felt completely natural to follow this exciting journey.
What is the difference between the Swedish and Norwegian markets?
There are both similarities and major differences between the Norwegian and Swedish markets. The biggest difference is probably the total electric car market and the sale of new cars. The market is more mature in Norway and a natural choice when buying a new car. If you combine electric cars and rechargeable hybrids, 22% of all cars in Norway and only 6% in Sweden are chargeable. This means that we have to solve the need for charging, at home, at work and on the roads, and that is not an easy task. I think the need in the Swedish and Norwegian markets is similar, Norway is only a few years ahead in EV charging roll out. . Among other things, thanks to a favorable incentive program related to the purchase of electric vehicles, the use of electric cars and the establishment of an infrastructure for charging has seen Norway taking the lead globally with Sweden a few years behind.
What challenges do you see in the industry?
The industry is still fairly new and we probably do not see all the challenges yet. Even though we will see great development of energy efficient batteries, there will still be a huge need to charge. To avoid bottlenecks, we must charge when we can, not when we have to. With more and more electric cars, there must be more charging sockets. I also see a major challenge in leveling out energy consumption over a longer period of the day, which will help optimize the existing infrastructure. To meet these challenges, manufacturers and suppliers must be innovative.
Norway has the most electric cars per capita in the world, have you noticed any challenges with that?
Norway has become a kind of test market for everyone who has a solution for electric car use. All innovations are unfortunately not well designed or sustainable long term. Although Norway has a high density of electric cars, Norway is a small market with several challenges to address. We do not know how well solutions developed across the globe works in Norway. We also see that we have challenges related to the electric car density in urban areas, where today’s technology is unable to meet the demand for electric car charging.
How big is the need for scalable EV charging in Norway?
Today, we have many 1st and 2nd generation solutions that no longer cover the need for todays EV charging and since our car fleet has an average age of over 10 years, the number of electric cars will continue to grow exponentially. I would argue that scalable electric car charging will be a key factor for the future if we want to continue grow at this pace and not overload the energy grid. The need is huge.
What are your expectations when ChargeNode is launched on the Norwegian market?
I look forward to inform the Norwegian market how ChargeNodes scalable charging technology can solve many challenges and enable more people to charge. I expect us to grow and become a significant player, just like in Sweden.
What is best about ChargeNodes charging technology?
The ChargeNode charging station, centrally located where all expensive and operational components are safely located, while type 2 sockets are installed at the parking lot. Other advantages are the simple app and charging portal that prioritizes the power in the system dynamically between 3 and 22kW to dedicated charging nodes prioritized according to departure needs and finally the simple payment methods combined with a solid service promise.
What will be the next step for the Norwegian market?
It is important that we can quickly establish ourselves in Norway and inform the Norwegian market about ChargeNodes innovative and unique charging technology. We need to establish offices with more resources in sales while also building collaborations and partnerships in the market. We want to be a player with an active presence for our customers and partners in Norway.
Charge Node Europé AB
Neongatan 4B
431 53 Mölndal
ChargeNode integrates the payment solution with many leasing companies such as Ziklo Bank, Autoplan, Leaseplan, Bilreda and others.
We can integrate with your own business-critical financial and operational monitoring systems to make charging an integral part of your business with minimal administration.
Advanced troubleshooting and remediation.
If you prefer digital contact with us over the phone – no problem, we offer automated support via our AI bot on the website.
Web-based help center with instructive videos and texts explaining how our portal and app work.
Personalized service around the clock.
Personalized service around the clock.
We offer different levels of service based on your needs.
Collect all your charges on a single invoice with our business account. Convenient for those with pool or staff cars.
Public charging points with a power above 50kW must offer payment with a physical payment terminal. We offer a pre-integrated payment terminal through our partner Adyen – pre-configured with our intuitive interface for selecting charging outlets and charging status.
Want to use your own app? We offer integration with other apps via the industry-standard OCPI protocol.
Pay without an app by scanning the QR code on the charging socket and entering payment card information. Support for ApplePay/GooglePay makes this an easy and attractive option for infrequent shoppers such as passing tourists.
As a charging customer, you always have free access to the ChargeNode mobile app for iOS and Android. Here you can easily activate charging, see a map view of ChargeNode’s public charging points and receive ongoing information about charging status. Here we can also provide information and help with the service. If your company is connected to ChargeNode, you can easily switch between private and business charging. You can also easily charge without the app via an assigned RFID tag.
Charge easily with ApplePay/GooglePay!
Fast, secure and contactless – choose Apple Pay or Google Pay at checkout for an easier payment experience, directly from your mobile.
Export of all session data and history for import into a separate BI tool.
Access to all invoices and invoice specifications as downloadable pdf.
In our portal, you can easily view and update the price for your area. You choose how you want to control pricing – we offer three flexible options:
Fixed price
With a fixed price you set a specific price per kWh including VAT.
Variable Monthly Price
The Variable Monthly option follows the current Nord Pool price based on the electricity area you belong to.
Scheduled price
Scheduled price allows you to set different prices for different times of the day or different days of the week.
Easily manage who can access your charge points, create member groups and price discounts.
Our powerful dashboard gives you a complete overview of your charging facility – from energy consumption and power peaks to charging patterns and unique users. Visualize user data, identify areas for improvement and make smarter decisions based on real insights.
Connect sockets to a specific user profile to automatically start charging when the cable is plugged in.
Start and stop charging with RFID tag.
Direct connection to Nordpool for loading spot prices (of hourly and quarterly prices). Enables smart pricing models to maximize the profitability of your charging portfolio.
System support to support the loyal network owner or Svenska Kraftnät when needed.
Restart the charge points automatically in case of power failure (Hardware dependent)
Prioritize individual outlets for e.g. mission-critical operations such as pool cars, service cars to ensure that the cars are always prioritized for charging so that operations do not stop. When priority outlets are not active, available power is distributed to other outlets to constantly maximize the charging capacity of the entire system
A dynamic power schedule gives you full control over the maximum power of your plant – adapted to the daily load and grid cost. The graph above shows how the schedule (green line) controls available power depending on time, while actual power use (black line) is safely within these limits.
Advantages of the power scheme:
The result: lower costs, more stable operation and more sustainable use of the electricity grid – perfect for homes, businesses and depot charging.
Charging all vehicles at full power at the same time is neither energy efficient nor economically sustainable. By instead prioritizing charging based on the vehicle’s departure time, we can use the available power in a smarter way – without leaving anyone with an empty battery.
Advantages of departure time controlled charging:
This type of dynamic control is particularly suitable for residential, commercial and depot charging – where vehicles are parked for a long time but do not need to be charged immediately.
Our backend load balances all OCPP compliant hardware to protect the property’s main fuse against overload and at the same time maximize the total power available for EV charging. We can load balance statically against a fixed power budget or dynamically, which means that the power budget for charging in real time relates to the property’s power consumption. We support both DLM (Dynamic load management) and ALM (Adaptive Load Management) standards.
With our intuitive alarm management module, you can keep track of the operational status of your charging infrastructure. It analyzes fault codes, automatically classifies alarms and suggests actions – so you can act quickly and efficiently.
Smarter service starts with the right insights – at the right time.
In addition, you monitor the charging points’ session data, see limits for e.g. uptime, automatically generate alarms and suggest action.
Our backend is integrated with an OCPI-compliant API that enables standardized and secure communication with other e-mobility systems and actors. This makes it easy to exchange data with external platforms – without exposing our entire infrastructure.
Advantages of our OCPI-API:
Our API is the obvious interface to create seamless charging across network boundaries – without compromising control or data security.
ChargeNode handles the payment with the charging customer and reimburses the facility owner via a self-invoice, completely without administration. All you need to do is post the invoice.
We have worked with almost all types of hardware and most brands of charging stations for many years. We have a deep understanding of how they work in operation and this is knowledge that we bring to every meeting and every decision. We have also developed our own hardware which, to put it mildly, is probably the best on the market.
Er anläggning driftsätts i vår portal och ni får tillgång till er kundportal. Vårt Customer Success-team står redo att erbjuda utbildning i portalen om så önskas. Under hela avtalstiden garanterar vi laddkunder support 24/7, 365 dagar om året. Vi är alltid tillgängliga via telefon för att hjälpa.
Vi har jobbat med nästan alla typer av hårdvara och de flesta märken på laddboxar i många år. Vi har en djup förståelse för hur de funkar i drift och detta är kunskap som vi tar med oss i varje möte och varje beslut. Vi har dessutom utvecklat en egen hårdvara som, om man ska sticka ut hakan lite, troligtvis är den bästa på marknaden.
