logo
  

World's First IOTA-powered Charging Station Launched In Netherlands

elaad iota charger 042318 lt

The Netherlands is now home to the world's first IOTA-enabled electric vehicle charging station that is being tested.

The IOTA charger is part of the ElaadNL test site, an initiative of the Dutch grid operators who are exploring ways to make the existing network efficient and affordable to support the development of electric mobility, or e-mobility and smart charging.

IOTA is a decentralized open-source distributed ledger that runs on a directed acyclic graph, or DAG, protocol called the Tangle.

The platform offers scalable technology that has been specifically designed to be the backbone for the Internet of Things, or IoT. Transactions happen on the ledger peer-to-peer without any transaction fees and with unlimited scalability.

On the ElaadNL charger, charging and paying can be done with IOTA.

The test site is located in the Arnhems Buiten business park and hosts all types of charging stations that are used in the public area in the Netherlands, including a fast charger, a charging island, a battery, two charging lanterns and the IOTA charger.

"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," Onoph Caron, managing director of ElaadNL, said.

The IOTA charging station can operate completely autonomously without a back office and any communication protocol. The transactions are exchanged directly without the use of a charge card or subscription.

The meter values are stored every 15 minutes in the Tangle, which ensures reliable and irrefutable administration, the ElaadNL said.

The charger is equipped with hardware to setup a TCP/IP connection with a car and uses the charging cable and special hardware.

People can access IOTA charger for charging and if their cars are not equipped with the required hard- and software, they can still simply charge their car by sending IOTA tokens directly to the charger using the normal IOTA wallet.

"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," Alisa Maas, Head of Mobility at the IOTA Foundation, said.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Forex News

First quarter growth data from China gained the maximum focus this week as trends in the massive emerging economy impact its trading partners. Elsewhere, the IMF released its latest global macroeconomic projections. Read our story to find out why comments from the Fed Chair Powell damped rate cut expectations. Meanwhile, there was some survey data that kindled hopes of a recovery in manufacturing. In the U.K., inflation data for March revealed some confusing trends.

View More Videos
Follow RTT