IBM Project Aims to Bring EVs Into the Power Grid
David Wagman | May 02, 2017TenneT, sonnen, Vandebron, and IBM are launching a pilot project that will use electric vehicles to help ease imbalances on the power network.
In the project, renewable energy company Vandebron will work with electric vehicle owners in the Netherlands to make the capacity of their car batteries available to help TenneT balance the grid as increasing amounts of renewable energy come online.
Software enables each car to participate by recording their availability and their action in response to signals from TenneT, which operates the electric grid in Germany and the Netherlands.
TenneT CEO Mel Kroon says in a statement, “These pilot projects are part of TenneT’s broader strategy of preparing the electricity system to accommodate the growing volume of renewable energy.”
The project will be supported by blockchain technology from IBM. The technology is intended to be an inexpensive transaction-processing system to track and record encrypted information.
As part of a broader digital transformation effort, the Reuters news agency says that TenneT is exploring the use of a "permissioned blockchain network" that uses Hyperledger Fabric to integrate flexible capacity supplied by electric cars and household batteries into the electrical grid.
Hyperledger Fabric is an open source blockchain framework and one of the five Hyperledger projects hosted by The Linux Foundation. IBM has worked with clients across financial services, supply chains, IoT, risk management, digital rights management, and healthcare to implement blockchain applications.
The digital process of verifying and documenting the performance values of distributed flexible energy devices is delivered via Blockchain, which is intended to connect multiple parties and large numbers of distributed computed nodes and enable them to take joint action in a scalable, transparent, and trusted network.
As part of the pilot project, IBM will develop the platform to ensure the verifiability and transparency of the transactions of the small-scale batteries and electric cars. The blockchain will enable optimal distribution across all markets and functions. This way, TenneT will be able to gain insight into the energy system, and "prosumers" will be aided in making resources available to the balancing market.