It's been two years (!) since my first post, so it's time for an update. The big news is that we’re expanding our gateway product into the Electric Vehicle (EV) load management space!
A lot has happened since my last update. We initially developed the Omega2S+ into our own gateway, and then re-engineered it with a low-energy Arm chip, creating the Cuprous Secured Edge Gateway. Given there’s already a detailed product page for the gateway, I’ll keep it brief here. Meanwhile, here’s a picture:
Our mission has been to empower manufacturers of renewable energy products by enabling autonomy, connectivity, and device management in homes, factories, and other customer sites. Over the past few years, though, we’ve zeroed in on EV charging and load management—so we’ve decided to fully embrace that direction!
Our evolved mission is to enable convenient EV charging for apartment buildings. To achieve this, we’re developing cutting-edge load management and Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP)-compatible controller software, hosted on our Cuprous Secured Edge Gateway. This will allow us to manage the load of hundreds of off-the-shelf EV chargers.
Load management is essential when two or more EV chargers share the same power supply. It reduces installation costs by eliminating the need for expensive mains supply upgrades. With load management, power is dynamically allocated across chargers, and usage can be adjusted over time.
Here’s a summary of our key features:
Local-first: Operates independently of an internet connection, ensuring EV charging continues even if the internet goes down.
Broad Charger Support: Compatible with multiple brands that support OCPP 1.6J or 2.0.1 with adequate load management response.
Primary Load Management: We monitor load in real-time at the distribution and mains boards, ensuring chargers never exceed set limits. Charging stops safely if load management is lost.
Secondary Load Management: We use off-the-shelf circuit breakers as a backup, protecting the entire building’s power supply.
Fire Safety Integration: In the event of a fire, EV charging will automatically be disabled—a sensible safety feature we believe will become legislated in the near future.
Again, I won't dwell on the gateway, so here are a few highlights:
On-Premise Gateway: Our industrial-grade hardware hosts the load management software, keeping critical operations local.
Edge Computing for Responsiveness: Unlike cloud-based solutions that can suffer from latency or internet outages, our on-premise Cuprous Secured Edge Gateway makes real-time decisions at the edge.
Secured Edge: Our gateway runs on Cuprux, our custom Linux distribution, built with zero-trust principles for security.
Cloud Services: While critical decisions happen on-premise, our cloud platform provides secure remote access for configuration, management, monitoring, and updates.
Zero-Config Setup: Electricians can connect the system to our cloud with zero configuration, making installation simple and quick.
We’re incredibly excited about this new direction and will be sharing more in early 2025. After three years of developing the Cuprous Secured Edge—its hardware, software, and cloud components—it’s time to focus on making it a key player in EV load management.
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