A Privacy-Aware Design for the Vehicle-to-Grid Framework

The vehicle-to-grid (V2G) framework proposes integration of battery-powered electric drive vehicles into the grid, enabling them to be recharged as necessary and to act as suppliers in the ancillary service electricity markets. This is expected to create incentives for the production and adoption of electric vehicles in the automotive industry. V2G frameworks require that the utility company or a third party aggregator has access to each vehicle´s charging status via a two-way communication network for billing and planning purposes. We establish that there exist consumer privacy risks associated with current concepts for V2G implementation and argue that consumer preferences and behaviors can be inferred from charging information if privacy is not a primary concern from the outset of V2G design. Finally, we outline a privacy-aware architecture for V2G systems.