A Trust-Based Charging System for Electric Vehicles Using Blockchain-Based Energy Trading

Abstract

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) provides an advancement in smart transportation, enabling seamless communication between vehicles, sensors, pedestrians, and roadside units. However, the dynamic and untrusted nature of IoV possesses significant challenges such as security, privacy risks, scalability limitations, and single points of failure. This work proposes a blockchain-based decentralized system that integrates a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)-inspired mutual authentication mechanism to ensure identity privacy and security. To enhance scalability, it employs clustering, which reduces computational load while maintaining high transaction throughput. The CBPoW (Cluster-Based Proof of Weight) consensus protocol is introduced for energy-efficient block validation and decentralized trust management. Experimental analysis using a dataset of 100 EVs reveals significant performance gains, the throughput increases by 16.05% in clustered environments, while latency reduces by 63.75% compared to traditional Proof of Work (PoW), and profits for energy sellers improve by 10.91%, alongside reduced costs for buyers. Registration and authentication processes demonstrate computational efficiency, requiring average times of 10.8 ms and 14.1 ms, respectively. The proposed system ensures secure, cost-effective, and scalable energy trading, making it a practical solution for addressing the growing demands of EV adoption and dynamic energy markets.