This Wednesday, April 18, 2018, was the day when the world’s first IOTA charging station was released by the Dutch knowledge and innovation centre ElaadNL.
The innovative charger is located in the Netherlands, in business park Arnhems Buiten, as a part of the new ElaadNL test site that offers all kinds of charging facilities available within the country, including a fast charger, a charging island, a battery, two charging lanterns and the IOTA charger. The test site is publicly available, which means that anyone holding IOTA and driving an electric car can now easily access the newly provided opportunity.
Specifically designed for the Internet of Things (IoT) environment, the IOTA Tangle represents itself an open-source protocol that facilitates novel Machine-to-Machine interactions, such as secure data transfer and fee-less real-time micropayments.
The charging station operates autonomously, without a need for communication protocol, and does not require a charge card or subscription to conduct transactions. The meter values are stored every 15 minutes in the Tangle, which ensures reliable and irrefutable administration.
In today’s rapidly digitalizing world, this technology seems to be very promising and useful for further exploration in the field of e-mobility.
As Onoph Caron, Managing Director of ElaadNL, has commented to the recent release:
“This charger shows the ability of using real machine to machine communications and micropayments, with the use of IOTA as a secure layer for these payments and data. ElaadNL researches all kinds of innovative and smart technologies with regard to charging electric cars. DLT-technology might become a widespread thing in the near future. Now we can explore and research its possibilities on our testing ground in Arnhem.”
Alisa Maas, Head of Mobility at the IOTA Foundation has also expressed her enthusiasm about the breakthrough innovation:
“IOTA is thrilled to see ElaadNL take their IOTA smart charging station development to the next level. This solution demystifies IOTA’s potential to become the backbone for the Machine Economy. Thanks to ElaadNL’s cutting edge innovation, seamless e-mobility is taking one big leap forward and we look forward to sharing this achievement with the rest of our growing ecosystem, at the crossroads of mobility, energy and smart cities sectors.”
The charger leverages the charging cable and special hardware, which is also used for the newly developed communication in e-Mobility ISO 15118, between car and charger to setup this connection. When the car is connected to the charging station, the hardware within the charges establishes a TCP/IP connection, which in its turn allows for the exchange of relevant data, followed by payments (IOTA) in a Machine-to-Machine mode.
The station has already undergone a testing with a mini Tesla model car equipped with the hardware to support the transaction. If an electric car is not equipped with the required hard- and software, a driver has an opportunity to charge it simply by sending IOTA tokens directly to the charger using the normal IOTA wallet. At press moment, the IOTA token is equal to 1,95 USD, according to CoinMarketCap.
Initiated by the joint Dutch grid operators, ElaadNL represents itself a knowledge and innovation centre that researches and tests the possibilities for charging electric cars in a reliable, affordable and sustainable way.
IOTA is a Germany-based not-for-profit foundation which aims to support the development and standardization of new distributed ledger technologies (DLT), including the IOTA Tangle.
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