Podcast highlights

EV Charging's Shift From Hardware Rollout to Profitability | Podcast#57 Highlight

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October 05, 2026 charge point operator, ev charging, the charge point podcast

First the industry raced to install hardware. Then it focused on stability and user experience. Now, says Joakim, co-founder of Peak Energy, the EV charging market is all about cost and profit. 

 

Drawing on years of selling servers in the IT industry, Joakim sees the same pattern playing out for charge point operators: once the hardware is in place, the value moves to the management layer that controls it. Recorded at ICNC 2026 for Episode 57 of The ChargePoint Podcast. 

 

About the guest: Joakim is co-founder of Peak Energy, which helps CPOs and charge point management system (CPMS) providers understand and control grid costs. Before moving into e-mobility, he spent many years in solution sales in the IT and security industries. 

 

In the full episode: 

• Why the EV charging market has moved from fast hardware rollout, to user experience, to cost and profitability 

• Grid costs vs. energy costs: why connection and transfer fees are the hidden cost many CPOs overlook 

• How DSO peak tariffs vary (a single top peak, an average of three, summer vs. winter rates) and why the data is still scattered across individual DSO websites 

• Why a flexibility strategy has to account for DSO peak costs and driver experience, not just energy prices 

• How smart charging and energy management went from a niche topic to a mainstream one in two years, with investors now asking about its value 

• Grid connection queues as a growing bottleneck in the Netherlands, Denmark and beyond 

• Flexibility as a revenue stream, from energy markets to non-wire alternatives to grid build-out 

 

🎧 Listen the full episode to hear Joakim explain how grid fees are defined, and why ignoring them either costs CPOs money or costs them customer experience. The episode also features independent EV grid integration consultant Jaap Burger. 

It was a kind of a pretty interesting conversation yesterday where someone said in the beginning, the market was all over installing a lot of hardware and rolling it up as quick as possible. And the next phase, it was more about stability, user experience. But where we are now, you have to look at cost and you look at profit. Yeah. And I think that's kind of really where we are. And coming from the IT industry for many, many years where you sold servers and then you sold managed services. This is the same case here. Someone else needs to take control.