IT infrastructure for providing energy-as-a-service to electric vehicles

Abstract

Plugin Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) are set to be the defining trend in road transportation for the 21st century. Unfortunately, the process of charging a large number of PHEVs will put a prohibitive amount of stress on conventional power grids. As per current estimates, it will not be possible to satisfy the peak demand of charging millions of PHEVs with current infrastructure. Additionally, to ensure stability of the power grid, the demand needs to be closely matched with supply all the time. This is difficult to ensure in a dynamic scenario like PHEV charging, where it is not possible to predict the load in the future. This problem is further complicated by the introduction of intermittent sources of alternate energy like wind power. This paper proposes an IT infrastructure for managing energy usage of PHEVs. The paper introduces a generalized currency of energy called a token, which entitles its owner to produce or consume a certain amount of electrical energy. Furthermore, the paper propose an IT infrastructure to manage tokens produced by millions of PHEVs and power stations. Simulation results for the system that consider the behavior of millions of PHEVs using data in prior work and traces from the Australian power grid for the last five years are also presented. © 2012 IEEE.