P6V2G: a privacy-preserving V2G scheme for two-way payments and reputation

Abstract The number of electric vehicles (EVs) is steadily growing. This provides a promising opportunity for balancing the smart grid of the future, because vehicle-to-grid (V2G) systems can utilize the batteries of plugged-in EVs as much needed distributed energy storage: In times of high production and low demand the excess energy in the grid is stored in the EVs’ batteries, while peaks in demand are mitigated by EVs feeding electricity back to the grid. But the data needed for managing individual V2G charging sessions as well as for billing and rewards is of a highly personal and therefore sensitive nature. This causes V2G systems to pose a significant threat to the privacy of their users. Existing cryptographic protocols for this scenario either do not offer adequate privacy protection or fail to provide key features necessary to obtain a practical system. Based on the recent cryptographic toll collection framework P4TC, this work introduces a privacy-preserving but efficient V2G payment and reward system called P6V2G. Our system facilitates two-way transactions in a semi online and post-payment setting. It provides double-spending detection, an integrated reputation system, contingency traceability and blacklisting features, and is portable between EVs. The aforementioned properties are holistically captured within an established cryptographic security framework. In contrast to existing protocols, this formal model of a V2G payment and reward system allows us to assert all properties through a comprehensive formal proof.