Largest Austrian Energy Provider Wien Energie Unveils DLT-Based E-Car Charger

Austria’s largest energy provider Wien Energie has introduced an electric car charger based on distributed ledger technology (DLT). According to the media release, Wien Energie has joined hands with Riddle & Code to conduct the trial of an electric vehicle charging station in Vienna. The charging station will feature “integrated secure machine identity.”

The unique system supposedly intends to offer unalterable data interfaces that link several characteristics of a power supply network, including smart meters, consumers and producers.

The station is supposed to permit real-time payment processing of charging transactions in its early stages. The system, following the completion of proof-of-concept, will begin operating in the final quarter of 2019. The DLT-based chargers are supposed to be a portion of the “Peer 2 Peer I m Quartier” research venture financed by the FFG (Austrian Research Promotion Agency) and conducted jointly at Viertel Zwei by Riddle & Code, Wien Energie and the AIT.

Globally, energy companies experimented with distributed ledger and blockchain innovations. Through its recently unveiled tech arm, Kaluza, the major UK energy company OVO took a stake in blockchain firm Electron earlier in March 2019. It is alleged that the capital investment will be utilized by Electron to build its energy platforms, network and distributed marketplace.

Ameren, major US power company, and Opus One Solutions, Canadian software engineering and solutions firm, announced yesterday that they will study the possible utilization of blockchain technology. Ameren, currently serving around 2.4 million consumers of electricity and 900,000 consumers of gas, is supposed to evaluate blockchain technology as part of its renewable energy action plan.