On the use of LPWAN for EVehicle to grid communication

The expected diffusion of EVehicles (EVs) to limit the impact of fossil fuel on mobility is going to cause severe issues to the management of electric grid. A large number of charging stations is going to be installed on the power grid to support EVs. Each of the charging station could require more than 100 kW from the grid. The grid consumption is unpredictable and it depends from the need of EVs in the neighborhood. The impact of the EV on the power grid can be limited by the proper exploitation of Vehicle to Grid communication (V2G). The advent of Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) promoted by Internet Of Things applications offers new opportunity for wireless communications. In this work, an example of such a technology (the LoRaWAN solution) is tested in a real-world scenario as a candidate for EV to grid communications. The experimental results highlight as LoRaWAN technology can be used to cover an area with a radius under 2 km, in an urban environment. At this distance, the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) is about -117 dBm. Such a result demonstrates the feasibility of the proposed approach.