With Blockchain Technology, Electric Vehicles Become Energy-Storage Devices on Wheels
By Bradley Berman — Lead Editor
The DAV Foundation’s blockchain-based platform for transportation creates an entire ecosystem for vehicles, mobility services, riders, and shippers. That means anybody wanting to share their vehicle or drone — whether to become a one-person Uber or make their trunk available to carry a package across town — can be remunerated in the form of DAV tokens. For me, as an electric-car driver with 240-volt home charger and a 3.3-kilowatt solar panel array on my roof, I could open shop as a purveyor of EV charging services, offering fill-ups to drivers wanting to replenish their batteries with renewable energy.
In fact, I already occasionally share my home EV charger using the PlugShare app. EV drivers who need a charge while visiting my neighborhood in North Berkeley, Calif. can hit me up on the app — and as a gesture of camaraderie between electric-car drivers, I let them use my charging station. Afterwards, some folks leave heartfelt notes or presents, like a nice bottle of wine. But mostly I know the favor will be returned if I need a charge while I happen to be away from home and too far from a public charger. This bartering of electrons (and fermented grapes) is rudimentary compared to what’s possible on the DAV platform.
Sharing Cheap Electric Fuel
There are more than 800,000 electric-vehicle drivers today in the United States. That number is expected to dramatically grow to several million in the next few years. Most EV drivers have home chargers. Every one of those charging stations — as well as those owned and operated by businesses — could be shared, thus expanding the EV charging network way beyond its current capacity. The economic benefit to EV drivers would be dramatic. Here’s one reason why: The cost for home charging is roughly the equivalent of $1 per gallon of gasoline — but public charging (due to charging networks operating as middlemen) commonly costs three times as much, erasing the economic benefit of using cheap grid-supplied electricity as an automotive fuel. The exchange of charging services between individuals using the DAV protocol would keep charging cheap — even when you’re away from home.
The potential benefit of putting EV charging on a blockchain can occur even when I’m charging my own car on my own charging station. That’s because the U.S. electrical grid currently lacks the capacity to store energy. The emerging smart grid, equipped with IT systems that manage the flow of energy, could allow electric cars to perform services like demand response and frequency regulation — helping put or pull off energy from the grid at key times. Today, electrical grid operators during peak demand times send out a signal causing things like air conditioning units to shut down and thereby reduce load on the grid. Smart electric-car charging stations — or connected communication systems on board vehicles — could also respond to these signals.
In exchange for being willing to pause a charging event, the rate paid for the electricity could be reduced. Some analysts believe that the value to utilities represented by an electric car could be as much as $200 or $300 annually — and could be passed on to the EV owner. That’s practically the cost of charging the car for an entire year.
It’s the same rationale that led TXU Energy, A Dallas-based energy provider, to entirely give away power to electric car drivers. In its Free Nights program, EV owners receive electricity absolutely free, that is, if plugged in between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Many EV drivers across the country already take advantage of time-of-use rates that encourages them to plug in at night by offering cheaper electricity when demand is low (when everybody is sleeping) — and increase electricity rates during the day to discourage charging during peak times.
In the TXU Energy program, consumers charge at night for free, when Texas is generating a lot of wind energy. Wind production is at its peak when Texas residents typically consume just 25 percent of their total electrical demand. For TXU Energy, the answer is to give it away at night when it’s abundant. It’s better to store that energy in an EV rather than shunting it.
EVs as Tokenized Energy Storage on Wheels
In the past, grid operators have not wanted to engage with individuals on demand-response agreements. But a decentralized marketplace of transportation services, like what the DAV Foundation is building, opens up the exchange of energy back and forth between the grid and millions of EV drivers — and these transactions can be fully tracked and fairly compensated using the DAV token. And just imagine the value of the token when electric cars have more robust “power take-off” technology — as first developed in Japan after the 2011 earthquake when Nissan and Mitsubishi utilized EVs to power homes left in the dark.
Last week, a diverse group of environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, along with automakers such as General Motors and Honda, as well as major utility companies, signed the Transportation Electrification Accord (TEA). The agreement, among other things, calls for “using a combination of time-based rates, smart charging and rate design, load management practices, demand response, and other innovative applications [so] EV loads can be managed in the interest of all electricity customers.” The DAV Foundation salutes this effort, and is currently in discussion to sign the TEA. DAV is ready to support the benefits of vehicle electrification with our vital open-source transportation protocols.
