EcoG: integrated charging

“Electric vehicles (EV) on the road become greener the more integrated EV charging is with the grid,” explains Joerg Heuer, CEO & co-founder of Munich-based EcoG, a company that provides ‘EcoG universal core’ for electric vehicle charger manufacturers to significantly reduce time and cost of charging station development, manufacturing and maintenance.

The technology can be used by the charging industry for remote device management, by charger operators to increase their services utilization and offer rewards for usage, or by fleet operators to manage charging dispatch. “It’s about making charging more sustainable. It’s not just about the cost of power, but the value of integration into the grid and making it profitable. If this isn’t profitable, the green system won’t be available.”

As e-mobility grows all around us at a staggering pace, EcoG enables solutions that will squeeze out so much more from charging infrastructure than just refilling the car. “Mobility alone uses as much power as the complete electrical grid transfers today,” explains Joerg, underlining the scale of things. “We try to provide better integration of charging, towards the grid and for daily use. If you want to make e-mobility sustainable, you need to integrate this into the system.”

With six times as many EcoG-enabled charging stations as last year, the company is going from strength to strength, already exceeding 10% of market share according to the European Aternative Fuel Observatory, within two years of introducing the EcoG universal core to the market. In this rapid growth, and in pursuit of real impact, EcoG has been supported with an equity investment by EIF-backed Ananda Impact Ventures. “This partnership isn’t all about technology, but also about being meaningful. We’ve been asking ourselves what is a sustainable way to move forward? We started to look at KPIs in terms of change to the carbon footprint that our technology brings to the market for example.”

Eco- stands as much for ecological as it does for ecosystem, because that’s what the company’s about, and the -G is for enerGy. It’s one of those company names that seem to perfectly capture the mission, as Joerg and his team seek to make the energy ecosystem of electric vehicles better, more integrated, more sustainable, and more valuable at the end of the day: “You need to be able to make good business with this. It needs to be profitable and make economic sense if this is to have an impact.”

Location: Munich, Germany

Financial intermediary: Ananda Impact Ventures

SME: EcoG

Sector: e-mobility

Number of employees: 28

Financing purpose: growth

EU Financing: SIA

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Germany, please refer to: http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/de