Secure Charging Scheduling Strategy for Electric Vehicles Based on Blockchain

In the Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) network, two-way energy transactions can be performed between electric vehicles (EVs) and charging stations (CSs), which are an important technology to support greener and energy-saving networks. As the EV ownership rate continues to rise, the unbalanced loads of CSs in some regions may cause undermine the stability of the power grid system. This paper proposes a CS matching algorithm based on an incentive mechanism to intelligently schedule electric vehicle charging activities for regional load balance. In addition, we propose a blockchain-based anonymous identity authentication scheme to enable EVs, CSs, and the utility data center (UDC) to perform secure mutual authentications to prevent identity privacy leakages. Simulation results show that the peak-to-valley ratio of the algorithm proposed in this paper can reach 75% and approximately 25% higher than the other schemes. It can optimize the charging behavior of electric vehicles and effectively balance the load between the CSs in the area. The security analysis also demonstrates that the scheme can ensure power transactions’ security by protecting identity privacy and preventing eavesdropping.

I. Introduction

With the rapid development of information and communication technologies, smart grids are also making technological advancements and have gained the research community’s attention. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology [1] is an important part of smart grids. The core idea of the technology is to use the energy storage of electric vehicles (EVs) with bidirectional smart chargers as energy sources. Due to the high simultaneity of EV charging times, the load unbalances between CSs will be more prominent when a large number of drivers choose the fast charging mode. Therefore, an efficient EV charging solution is imperative to design with the continuous rise of EV ownership. Moreover, due to characteristics such as EV mobility, there is a more significant privacy security risk between EVs, CSs, and other entities during the vehicle charging/discharging operations and the related communication processes [2]. Therefore, designing a safe and reliable energy transaction authentication mechanism is necessary.