GIREVE and the interoperability of charging stations in France: a complete guide

GIREVE is the national roaming platform for electric vehicles. For fleet managers and IRVE operators, understanding how it works is essential to offer their users access to 180,000+ charge points without multiplying contracts.

What is GIREVE?

GIREVE (Groupement pour l'Itinérance des Recharges Électriques de Véhicules) is a national data hub created in 2013 at the initiative of EDF, Total, Michelin and the Caisse des Dépôts. Its role is to ensure interoperability between all charging station networks in France — which allows a driver to charge anywhere with a single badge or a single app, regardless of the charging station brand.

In 2026, GIREVE connects:

• 180,000+ charge points in France (i.e. more than 85% of publicly accessible charging stations)
• 40+ mobility operators (eMSP: Chargemap, TotalEnergies, Engie, Shell, etc.)
• 200+ charge point operators (CPO) certified in France
• A European network via Hubject and EMSP covering 15+ countries

OCPI: the standardised roaming protocol

Interoperability relies on the OCPI (Open Charge Point Interface) protocol, currently in version 2.2.1. It is the standard that allows the systems of CPOs (charge point operators) and eMSPs (mobility operators) to exchange in real time the information required for a roaming charging session:

• Availability of charging stations and real-time status (free/occupied/out of service)
• Tariffs applicable to the roaming user
• Authentication of the user (RFID badge, QR code, app)
• Session: start, consumption, stop
• CDR (Charge Detail Record): session report for billing

The difference with OCPP (charging station↔management software protocol): OCPI handles the dialogue between operators, while OCPP handles the dialogue between the physical charging station and its supervision software. The two protocols are complementary and indispensable in a modern IRVE ecosystem.

CPO, eMSP, HPC: who does what in the IRVE ecosystem?

How does roaming work in practice?

Here, by way of illustration, is how this will work once Sparklin's GIREVE integration is in place — take the example of an employee of a Sparklin client company who ends up on the motorway and needs to charge at a TotalEnergies station:

1. The employee will present their Sparklin badge (RFID) at the TotalEnergies station
2. The TotalEnergies station will query GIREVE to authenticate the badge
3. GIREVE will contact Sparklin (the badge's CPO) to check access rights
4. Sparklin will validate the authorisation — the station will start charging
5. At the end of the session, a CDR will be sent to Sparklin via GIREVE
6. Sparklin will bill the employee's company and pass on TotalEnergies' share

The whole process will take place in under 3 seconds. The user won't have to do anything — their single badge will work across 180,000+ charge points.

Centralised billing: the advantage for fleet managers

Without GIREVE roaming, a company managing 50 electric vehicles would have to:

• Take out subscriptions with each network (TotalEnergies, Engie, Shell, Chargemap...)
• Manage several monthly invoices and several badges per vehicle
• Manually validate charging expense reports for business travel

With Sparklin's planned GIREVE integration, the company will eventually have a single monthly invoice consolidating all charging: on-site, at home via the Sparklin by go-e, and while roaming across the network's 180,000+ charge points. Spark Pilot already provides a unified dashboard by vehicle, driver and site.

Sparklin and GIREVE: integration planned

Sparklin plans to become a certified CPO operator on the GIREVE platform. This planned integration will notably involve:

• A direct OCPI 2.2.1 connection to the GIREVE platform
• A guaranteed response time for badge authentication in roaming (<2 s)
• Real-time reporting of the availability of all Sparklin charging stations on navigation apps (PlugShare, ABRP, ChargeMap, etc.)
• Centralised monthly billing for multi-site companies
• Access to the European network via Hubject for cross-border travel

Checklist for becoming a compliant CPO operator via GIREVE

If you want to open your private car park to the public (with billing) and join the GIREVE network, here are the technical prerequisites:

1. ✅ OCPP 2.0.1-compatible charging stations — mandatory for communication with the management software
2. ✅ OCPI 2.2.1-certified CSMS supervision software — Spark Pilot is natively compatible
3. ✅ MID-certified meters on the charging stations — mandatory for energy-based billing to the public
4. ✅ GIREVE contract or access via an already-certified operator (Sparklin plans to provide you with this GIREVE connectivity without you becoming a CPO yourself)
5. ✅ EVSE identifiers (standardised EVSE-ID format) assigned to each charge point
6. ✅ Price display on or near the charging station (legal requirement since 2022)