Vehicle-to-Grid Charger Embodiment

Mechanism

The mechanism comprises a credential-presentation step, a pair-initiation step, an energy-rate negotiation step, an exchange step bounded by the proximity window of the charging session, and a settlement step that produces the bilateral coordination record. At credential presentation the vehicle and the charging station each present credentialed identities issued by their respective authorities — a vehicle-OEM credential or owner credential for the vehicle, an operator credential or grid-authority credential for the charging station — and each verifies the other's credential against the issuing authority's signed taxonomy. The architecture admits energy-exchange participation only when both credentials are admissible and authorize the requested direction of flow.

At pair initiation the parties bind a session identifier, a session-start timestamp, and a session-scoped signing context. The session identifier is the proximity window for the matched pair; every substantive attestation issued during the session is bound to the session identifier and is therefore recoverable as part of the session's pair-settlement record. The session-scoped signing context prevents replay of session-bound attestations into a different session.

Energy-rate negotiation produces the substantive claim of the matched pair. The claim is an energy-rate tuple comprising price per unit, direction of flow (vehicle-to-grid or grid-to-vehicle), and total quantity, optionally augmented by a time-varying rate schedule expressed as a sequence of sub-claims each bound to a sub-window of the session. The negotiation may consult external rate references — wholesale grid rates, locational marginal prices, vehicle-owner reservation prices — but the resulting rate tuple is bound bilaterally between the two matched parties and is signed by both before the exchange step begins.

The exchange step proceeds within the proximity window. Energy flows in the agreed direction; the metering apparatus records cumulative quantity; the parties exchange periodic sub-attestations binding the cumulative quantity at sub-window boundaries to the negotiated rate. The sub-attestations support time-varying-rate settlement: a session that spans a tariff transition produces sub-attestations under each tariff sub-window, and the session's pair-settlement record carries the full sequence. At session end the parties produce the final settlement attestation: total quantity exchanged in each direction, total settlement amount computed from the rate tuple and the metered quantities, and the signatures binding both parties to the settled outcome. The settlement record is the pair-settlement artifact that survives audit, dispute, and downstream financial reconciliation.

Operating Parameters

Operating parameters include the credential-issuing authorities, the proximity-window definition, the rate-tuple schema, the sub-attestation cadence, and the metering-binding policy. Credential-issuing authorities determine which vehicles and which charging stations may participate in pair settlement under a given deployment. A vehicle-OEM authority issues credentials authorizing vehicles of a specific make and model to participate; a grid-authority issues credentials authorizing charging stations to participate at a specific interconnection. Owner credentials supplement vehicle credentials when the owner identity (rather than the vehicle identity) is the relevant counterparty for billing.

The proximity-window definition pins the session boundary. The default definition is the physical connection — plug insertion to plug removal — but alternative definitions support stationary inductive charging (proximity-detection start to proximity-detection end), bidirectional dynamic exchange (entry to exit of a power-exchange roadway segment), and scheduled exchange (session-start command to session-end command in a managed-fleet context). The window definition is bound into the session's signing context and is recoverable from the pair-settlement record.

The rate-tuple schema specifies the price-per-unit unit (currency per kilowatt-hour, currency per ampere-hour at a reference voltage, or a domain-specific unit for non-electrical energy carriers), the direction-of-flow enumeration, and the total-quantity bounds. Sub-attestation cadence governs how frequently the parties exchange cumulative-quantity sub-attestations during the session: a fast cadence supports time-varying-rate settlement at fine granularity; a slow cadence reduces signing overhead at the cost of coarser sub-window resolution. Metering-binding policy governs which metering apparatus's reading is authoritative when vehicle-side and station-side meters diverge; default policies require both readings to be co-signed within a tolerance, with a dispute path invoked when the tolerance is exceeded.

Alternative Embodiments

A first alternative embodiment supports wholesale-rate V2G. The energy-rate tuple references a wholesale-market price index rather than a fixed retail rate; the sub-attestation cadence is aligned with the market settlement interval; and the session's pair-settlement record carries the market-index reference so that downstream financial reconciliation against the wholesale market is mechanically determinable. The grid operator participates as the matched counterparty under a grid-authority credential authorizing wholesale-rate participation.

A second alternative embodiment supports peer-to-peer energy exchange. Two vehicles, each holding owner credentials, perform a vehicle-to-vehicle pair settlement in which one vehicle discharges to a shared inductive or conductive coupling and the other charges from it. The matched-pair architecture admits the symmetric vehicle-vehicle pairing under the same primitive that admits vehicle-station pairing; the energy-rate tuple is negotiated bilaterally between the owners, with the charging-station-marketplace primitive optionally providing rate discovery without inserting itself as a counterparty.

A third alternative embodiment supports dynamic-pricing charging. The energy-rate tuple admits a sequence of rate sub-claims, each bound to a sub-window of the session, with the rate sub-claim updated by the matched parties at sub-window boundaries under a signed dynamic-pricing protocol. The protocol supports demand-response participation, time-of-use tariff transitions during a single session, and emergency-rate adjustments under grid-authority signatures.

A fourth alternative embodiment integrates with existing charging hardware. The matched-pair primitive becomes the settlement layer atop standard physical charging interfaces (CCS, CHAdeMO, NACS, MCS, and emerging wireless standards). The physical interface conducts energy and exchanges low-level handshakes; the matched-pair signing layer rides on the interface's communication channel or on a side-channel binding to the same session. Integration through declared interfaces preserves backward compatibility with charging stations that support the physical interface but not the matched-pair settlement layer, in which case the deployment falls back to conventional intermediated billing.

A fifth alternative embodiment supports fleet-managed exchange. A fleet operator issues credentials to vehicles in its fleet authorizing pair-settlement participation under fleet-managed rate schedules; the fleet operator and the grid operator pre-negotiate a rate-tuple template, and individual vehicle-station sessions instantiate the template at session time. The fleet-managed embodiment supports commercial fleets, transit operators, and managed-charging programs without sacrificing the matched-pair guarantee for individual sessions.

Composition With the Charging-Station-Marketplace Primitive

The V2G charger embodiment composes with the charging-station-marketplace primitive in a structural relationship where the marketplace primitive provides discovery, rate-reference, and counterparty-selection services without inserting itself as a counterparty in the resulting matched pair. The marketplace primitive operates as a credentialed catalog: charging stations advertise their availability, rate posture, and authorization scope; vehicles query the catalog to identify candidate counterparties; and the catalog returns matches that satisfy the vehicle's selection criteria. Selection of a specific charging station from the candidate set initiates a matched-pair session directly between the vehicle and the selected station; the marketplace primitive does not sit on the settlement path.

The composition preserves the matched-pair architecture's structural property that the settlement is bilateral. The marketplace primitive's role is bounded by its credentialed scope: discovery, rate-reference, and counterparty-selection. The marketplace operator may charge a discovery fee under a separate matched-pair settlement with whichever participant requested the discovery service, but that fee settlement is structurally distinct from the energy-exchange settlement. The architecture distinguishes the two pairs and binds each under its own pair-settlement record.

The composition further supports marketplace competition and substitutability. Multiple marketplace providers may operate concurrently; vehicles and stations may query several marketplaces; and the matched-pair settlement is unaffected by which marketplace produced the match. The structural separation between the marketplace primitive and the energy-exchange settlement is the architectural feature that prevents marketplace lock-in: a vehicle that switches marketplaces continues to settle directly with charging stations under the same pair-settlement primitive, and the historical pair-settlement records remain valid regardless of marketplace continuity.

Prior-Art Distinction

Conventional EV charging architectures depend on charging-network operators that act as intermediary platforms between vehicles and grid infrastructure. The intermediary platform sits on the settlement path, mediates billing between the vehicle owner and the grid operator, and accumulates platform-specific lock-in: roaming agreements among networks are bilateral and incomplete; cross-network charging requires participation in a roaming aggregator; and the platform's failure modes (operational outage, business failure, policy change) propagate to all charging sessions on the platform. The structural cost of intermediation is borne by every charging session.

Conventional V2G architectures inherit the same intermediation. The V2G aggregator acts as the counterparty to both the vehicle and the grid operator; the aggregator's credentials, rate authority, and settlement infrastructure are required for the V2G transaction to proceed; and the vehicle owner's relationship to the grid is mediated by the aggregator. The matched-pair V2G charger embodiment differs structurally: the vehicle owner and the grid operator settle directly under the matched-pair primitive, with aggregators (where they exist at all) participating as optional service providers under their own credentialed scope rather than as required intermediaries.

Conventional smart-contract-based V2G proposals replace centralized intermediaries with on-chain intermediaries; the on-chain platform sits on the settlement path and imposes its own structural costs (transaction fees, on-chain throughput limits, on-chain governance dependencies). The matched-pair embodiment differs in that the settlement is bilateral by construction: signatures and attestations bind the two matched parties directly, with no on-chain or off-chain intermediary required for settlement validity. On-chain anchoring may be added as an optional feature for downstream auditability, but it is not a structural requirement of the embodiment.

Disclosure Scope

This disclosure encompasses any architecture in which (i) a vehicle and a charging station each hold credentialed identities authorizing energy-exchange participation, (ii) a pair-settlement session is initiated bilaterally between the vehicle and the charging station within a defined proximity window, (iii) the substantive claim of the session is an energy-rate tuple specifying price per unit, direction of flow, and total quantity, optionally augmented by a sequence of sub-claims supporting time-varying rate settlement, (iv) the session produces a pair-settlement record bound by signatures of both parties under their credentialed identities, and (v) the embodiment composes with a charging-station-marketplace primitive that provides discovery and counterparty-selection without inserting itself as a counterparty in the resulting matched pair.

The disclosure is not limited to electrical energy carriers, conductive coupling, or fixed retail rates. It encompasses inductive coupling, dynamic in-motion coupling, alternative energy carriers (hydrogen, compressed gas, thermal exchange) reduced to a rate-tuple substantive claim, wholesale-rate references, peer-to-peer vehicle-to-vehicle exchange, dynamic-pricing protocols, fleet-managed templates, and integration with existing physical charging interfaces through declared interface bindings. The embodiment is a specific instantiation of the matched-pair primitive, and the scope of the disclosure is bounded by the structural requirements of bilateral pair-settlement under credentialed identities within a defined proximity window.