A Blockchain-Based Smart Contractual Framework for the Electric Vehicle Charging Ecosystem

The impending adoption of electric vehicles is rapidly increasing the complexity of the charging process management for the various stakeholders of the EV charging ecosystem. These stakeholders need to cooperate in exchanging metering, billing, and other sensitive and private data required for the provision of EV charging services. Thus, secure, transparent, and reliable data communication networks must be established to enable efficient interaction among the different stakeholders regarding identity and charging management, along with the session settlement and billing processes. Blockchain is a distributed, digital transaction technology that allows securely exchanging and storing data, as well as executing smart contracts in peer-to-peer networks amongst different entities without established trusted relationships. These smart contracts may holistically describe the relationships between the different entities, as well as the rules of their interaction. Additionally, blockchain technology has the potential to ensure the integrity, reliability, and efficiency of the established ecosystem, strengthen cybersecurity, protect privacy, and minimize transaction costs by applying sophisticated cryptographic techniques. This paper provides an overview of how blockchain technology could transform and improve an operational EV charging management network and proposes a blockchain-based framework that is suitable for the electric vehicle charging ecosystem.