ICO Terminals: From Standalone Charge Points to One Controlled Energy System

Client ICO Terminals

Sector Car import terminal, vehicle processing

Locations Zeebruges (main site) and Kallo

Scale 300+ AC and DC connectors, spread across clusters on a single terminal

Energy source Grid + 11 wind turbines on site

Partners Smappee (energy management + charging infrastructure), Extrapower, Ceratec, Quintiens  (installation and home chargers)

ICO is Europe's largest car import terminal. Ships come in, vehicles are unloaded, and leave the terminal within days by truck, train, or another ship, headed to a dealer or final destination. A growing share of those vehicles is electric, and needs to be topped up to an agreed level before departure; otherwise the vehicle can't be delivered.

By 2019, the terminal already had a charging area with over 300 slow chargers. But there was no control: vehicles were over- or under-charged, and the surplus power couldn't be billed back to the car brands. The infrastructure was AC-only, so there was no DC charging for vehicles that needed to leave quickly. There was no visibility into the site's energy flows: multiple transformers, wind turbines, parking areas and buildings, all without a central view. And the growing number of car brands ICO works with called for a charging solution that could vary by brand and by vehicle.

So ICO wasn't looking for a charge point supplier. It was looking for a smart energy management partner that could replace the existing EV-Box charge points with intelligently controlled charging infrastructure, deliver an agreed number of kilowatt-hours per vehicle, add fast charging, measure and secure the entire site, and also handle staff home charging with correct cost allocation.

What we built

• Energy management across the whole site. Smappee Infinity measures and protects seven low-voltage boards and the transformers behind them. Dynamic load balancing distributes capacity across the clusters without exceeding available power. The site's eleven wind turbines are included in the picture too.

• Clusters of AC charge points. Seven Smappee EV Base charge points per cluster, each with two 22 kW connections. That's 14 connectors per cluster, rail-mounted for flexible layout. The staff and visitor car park has 20 publicly accessible EV Base charge points.

• DC charging where needed. 200 kW Smappee EV Ultra units for vehicles that need to leave quickly. AC and DC controlled together, on the same platform.

• API integration with the ICO system. The core of the collaboration: the ICO system sends a target value per vehicle via the Smappee API, Smappee delivers exactly that number of kilowatt-hours and stops charging automatically. Different brands, different targets, one controlled process.

• Home chargers for staff. Through installation partners Extrapower, Ceratec and Quintiens, employees get a Smappee EV Wall with split billing at home. Charging costs are automatically split correctly between employer and employee.

What it delivers for ICO

• Every vehicle leaves the terminal with exactly the agreed charge level.
• No more excess energy cost that can't be billed back to the car brands.
• One dashboard for all charging infrastructure, AC and DC together, with visibility down to transformer level.
• Fast charging added without overloading the existing grid connection.
• A modular setup that grows with the terminal, without starting from scratch each time.

What This Means for Your Site

Do you run a terminal, depot, or large operational site where electric vehicles are processed daily? You've probably run into these questions:

• How do we make sure every vehicle gets the right charge level, without waste?
• How do we keep an overview of a growing infrastructure, with multiple transformers and renewable sources?
• How do we scale without starting from scratch each time?

Let's talk.