BMW has partnered with Energy Web to demonstrate a blockchain solution for recharging electric vehicles with renewable energy. It also involved the Belgian and German electric grid operator Elia. The key benefit was sharing a vehicle’s decentralized identity with the grid operator. Usually, only charging stations communicate with the car, and the grid operator or TSO receives aggregate data. By using the Energy Web solution, Elia could see the details of the charging for that vehicle.
The solution is part of Energy Web’s Open Charging Network (OCN). Charging electric vehicles (EVs) is not dissimilar to mobile phones. Sometimes your call will use the operator you signed up to, and other times it will roam to another mobile network.
Likewise, most cars sign up to one charging network for charging electric vehicles, but several companies operate public charging points. When roaming, this adds an intermediary, and hence an additional cost. And Energy Web’s blockchain solution can instead route the charging cost. However, some might argue that the Energy Web blockchain is effectively the intermediary, and it only works with charging points that have signed up.
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