Maingau Autostrom partners with Deftpower

Maingau is developing its electric vehicle charging service in partnership with Deftpower. The technology from the Dutch company is intended to enable features such as smart charging and additional services for fleet customers.

As part of this partnership, Deftpower’s technology will be integrated into Maingau’s electric vehicle charging services, with the aim of expanding offerings for private and business customers in Germany. This is stated in a joint announcement from the two companies.

According to the company, Maingau Autostrom currently provides access to over 880,000 charging points across Europe. With Deftpower, the energy provider aims to strengthen the technical foundation of its charging service, including support for smart charging in the future. However, the partners have not yet disclosed when such features will be available or exactly how they will work.

It is clear that the Autostrom app will also be improved as part of this collaboration. For business customers, Maingau plans to integrate Deftpower’s fleet solutions, allowing companies to monitor their charging activities and manage associated costs through a dedicated fleet management portal.

Maingau adds smart charging to Autostrom

Maingau cites Deftpower’s focus on so-called eMSPs—providers of charging services for electric vehicle owners—as the main reason for its choice. “Deftpower shares our vision for where the eMSP market is heading: toward more connected, scalable, and digitally managed charging services,” says Sarah Carlsson, head of sales at Maingau. This approach aims to deliver a smarter and more unified charging experience for customers.

The specific role that smart charging will play in this remains unclear for now. The partners envision a stronger connection between charging processes and the energy system in the future. Deftpower’s CEO, Jacob van Zonneveld, talks about turning electric vehicles into a “reliable source of flexibility for the grid.” The statement does not clarify whether Maingau intends to schedule charging based on electricity prices or grid load, nor which charging stations or vehicles will be supported.

Deftpower is already implementing smart charging in partnership with other charging providers. At the end of August, the company and Ubitricity announced plans to expand their collaboration to 1,500 public charging stations in the Netherlands. There, charging sessions can be scheduled for times when grid load is lower using so-called Charging Profiles from the open standard OCPI 2.2.1. A direct API connection to the vehicle is not required for this purpose.

Deftpower is also working with Allego in the Netherlands on controlled charging. There, drivers can shift their charging sessions to avoid evening peak times at thousands of AC charging stations and receive cashback for doing so. However, Maingau has not yet announced that it will use the same technical solution or a similar incentive model. Strategically, this partnership is particularly interesting for Maingau because the company operates in both the energy sector and as an eMSP. Smart charging could strengthen the connection between these two areas in the future.