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The EU’s Alternative Fuel Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) and its technical standard requirements are among the most core regulations in the field of charging this year
The core of the EU’s Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR) is the key regulations issued for electric vehicle charging networks, ensuring that the construction of charging infrastructure (such as electric charging stations, shore power, etc.) across the entire EU – not just a city or a country, but across borders – has unified, deliverable, usable, affordable, and scalable standards and goals. From “whether to build” to “must build”, the high-speed and core transportation network (TEN-T) has been included as a mandatory deployment target, and public fast charging has become infrastructure, no longer relying on subsidy driven, which is crucial for achieving emissions reduction, promoting electrification, and optimizing energy efficiency in the transportation industry.
The EU AFIR aims to unify charging infrastructure standards and deployment requirements within the EU, and promote cross-border compatible public charging networks.
The new European Commission delegated Regulation 2025/656 to provide technical requirements for communication protocols and interoperability of charging infrastructure. Starting from January 8, 2026, all newly installed or modified public charging stations must comply with a series of standards such as EN ISO 15118-1 to EN ISO 15118-5.
These standards are the foundation for implementing “Plug&Charge” and digital communication, helping to provide users with a card free/app free operating experience.
Starting from 2027, more advanced EN ISO 15118-20 standards will also become necessary, which means that new charging stations and retrofit stations must support intelligent charging and bidirectional charging (V2G) communication capabilities.
The four most intuitive trends of the EU AFIR regulation on China’s charging infrastructure industry are:
China is one of the important bases for global charging equipment manufacturing, and many companies have already deeply participated in bidding and delivery in the European market. The implementation of AFIR means that Chinese companies need to meet the following trend requirements when exporting products and systems:
● Fast charging has become mainstream (with higher requirements for pile end quality)
- 1. ≥ 150kW DC fast charging has become the default regulatory configuration
- 2. Single pile power and system stability replace “quantity competition”
● From “can be charged” to “plug and play” (SECC is required to have PnC function)
- 1. Complex registration process is not allowed
- 2. User experience is approaching the gas station mode
- 3. Cross national, cross operator, and cross vehicle interoperability system across Europe
- 4. Communication protocols and interoperability become hard barriers
● From device products to system nodes (with higher quality requirements for SECC)
- 1. Charging stations must have communication, backend docking, and data capabilities (including digital communication capabilities of communication stations)
- 2. Become the connection point between energy and digital systems
● From current demand to future power grid (requiring SECC to have PnC and V2G functions)
- 1. Support intelligent charging and load management
- 2. Reserve technical space for future vehicle to network interaction (V2G)
This means that Chinese pile enterprises must design hardware and software according to new standards and apply the latest SECC standards to transform their export product capabilities from “quantity construction” to “intelligent and standardized interconnection”. MIDA’s SECC has already been commercialized for ISO 15118-2 and has an ISO 15118-20 technology roadmap and hardware supporting products, which can support Chinese export pile enterprises to lay out standardized design and interconnection capabilities in advance, supplemented by a professional one-on-one FAE team to assist OEMs in opening up the key path to the future global market.
Post time: Sep-20-2026
