California Startup Poised To Introduce Blockchain Payment Technology To United States

Using an electronic wallet, Share&Charge enables people to share their charging stations with drivers who pay for usage via blockchain technology. Following successful testing in Germany, Oxygen Initiative is adapting Share&Charge to U.S. standards for the American market. In addition, other use cases for mobility services will be tested.

"E-mobility technologies are ushering in advancements in transportation that could foster the adoption of clean-tech autonomous vehicles (AVs) and electric vehicles (EVs), which could bring the dream of less congestion and pollution, shorter commutes and lower operating costs into reality," said Stephen G. Davis, founder and CEO, Oxygen Initiative. "We're excited to do our part by introducing blockchain technology for the mobility space to the United States, starting with access and payment solutions for electric charging stations."

Like the effortless user experience consumers enjoy while charging their cars at home, blockchain technology enables seamless payments for charging stations when they're out and about. This kind of payment system supports emerging e-mobility solutions, what is becoming known as both autonomous, connected, electric and shared (ACES) and fleets of autonomous vehicles, electric and shared (FAVES) technologies.

"The concept of seamless charging and the possibility of microtransactions enabled by blockchain technology may be a breakthrough for the entire mobility sector," Davis said. "We could see cars pay for themselves and handle simple transactions automatically. As an example, imagine letting an autonomous vehicle go into taxi mode while you're at work and return when you're ready to go home. With this e-mobility solution, the car could collect fares from riders and pay to charge itself for the commute home."

With new blockchain-based technology, EV drivers can employ easy-to-use payment options, such as the real-time settlement of highway tolls, peer-to-peer roaming and sharing of charging stations or could collect fees from other people for car-sharing.

Beyond these benefits of convenience, Oxygen Initiative also points out that this technology could enable EV drivers to help utilities manage the power grid seamlessly – a way for these vehicles to pay for their own fuel. Under these scenarios, electric utilities will compensate drivers for agreeing to delay charging sessions, thereby reducing strain on power grids during times of peak demand. 

"Soon, instead of paying with cash or credit cards, your vehicle could sell back excess energy during peak pricing events and pay for vehicle operation," Davis explained. "By teaming up with automakers, Oxygen Initiative will be able to solve the interoperability problem caused by various types of charging stations and charge card and payment systems to accelerate revolution-scale adoption of FAVES."

"Following successful tests in Germany, we are very happy to roll out our mobility blockchain products in the United States with our partner Oxygen Initiative," said Thomas Birr, senior vice president, innovation and business transformation, innogy SE. "We believe the future of personal mobility will be autonomous, connected, electric and shared. Blockchain technology can be a catalyst for this, facilitating secure, simple and efficient transactions among all stakeholders of the mobility sector."

Today's announcement also marks the anniversary of the partnership between Oxygen Initiative and innogy SE. In February 2016, innogy SE (under its predecessor European utility RWE) invested in Oxygen Initiative, operating at the time under brand name KnGrid, and tapped the California-based clean tech startup to serve as the exclusive licensee of RWE's eMobility platform in North America.

About Oxygen Initiative
As the first smart grid company of its kind, Oxygen Initiative is poised to deliver the most advanced charge-management systems available on the market, opening intelligent vehicle charging to California's plug-in electric vehicle owners, fleet operators, charging hosts, cities, utilities and microgrid operators. Oxygen Initiative is the developer and operator of the first and only ISO/IEC 15118 standards-based smart charging platform to flexibly manage plug-in EV vehicle charging with data from the power grid. Learn more at oxygeninitiative.com.

About Share&Charge
Share&Charge is an initiative of the innogy Innovation Hub that is part of innogy SE. It is the first global peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace for electric charging enabled by blockchain. Share & Charge enables people and small-to-midsize enterprises (SMEs) to share their charging stations, thereby helping to advance e-mobility and convert personal charging stations into money-generating machines. Share & Charge is following the vision of a global mobility transaction platform enabling seamless transport everywhere.
Learn more at shareandcharge.com/en.

About innogy SE
innogy SE is Germany's leading energy company, with revenue of approximately 46 billion euros (2015), more than 40,000 employees and activities in 16 countries across Europe. With its three business segments spanning grid and infrastructure as well as retail and renewables, innogy addresses the requirements of a modern, decarbonized, decentralized and digital energy world. Its activities focus on its 23 million customers and on offering them innovative and sustainable products and services that enable them to use energy more efficiently and improve their quality of life.

innogy was formed from the restructuring of the RWE Group and started operations on April 1, 2016. Its IPO in October 2016 made innogy SE Germany's most valuable energy company. innogy is working on future-oriented technologies for the energy world of tomorrow. innogy´s employees are researching and developing innovative products and services in many areas of the company. In the innogy Innovation Hub alone, more than 130 in-house and third-party experts are working on the business models of the future. This team also cooperates internationally with startup companies, and for this purpose, innogy has own innovation teams in place in the startup scene in California's Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, London and Berlin. Learn more at iam.innogy.com/en/ueber-innogy.

Contact:
Chad Romiti
1-949-293-7781
[email protected]

SOURCE Oxygen Initiative

Related Links

http://www.oxygeninitiative.com/