The team behind successful decentralised digital economy ecosystems such as the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), Kochi Open Mobility Network, Aadhaar, and National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) is now working on a digital public good which will let customers locate an EV charging station, green energy sources, and used idle batteries across the country.
Called the Unified Energy Interface (UEI), the initiative is powered by Beckn Protocol, and it will allow a user to search for EV charging stations nearby and settle payments across service providers. Beckn Protocol is an open-source initiative created by the Foundation for Interoperability in Digital Economy (FIDE).
EV charging has two components: energy, and availability of a charger that dispenses energy.
Sujith Nair, co-creator, Beckn Protocol, told ET, “Between these companies – Pulse Energy, Sheru, Turno, and Kazam – an open network called UEI demonstrated multiple green energy use cases in a concept simulation. First use case was to discover EV charging stations operated by any Charge Point Operators, with any consumer app, like a WhatsApp chatbot.”
Pulse Energy, an EV charger aggregator, volunteered with FIDE to create a community sandbox for UEI that was demonstrated along with other EV startups like Kazam, Sheru and Turno to FIDE cofounder Nandan Nilekani on February 6.
On UEI, one could search for all EV charging stations nearby. The interface could ask questions like whether one has a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler to charge, and how much energy is required to charge. These charging stations could be from any company just like there could be many charging providers’ apps on UEI.
Customers could choose any EV charging station, select the units of energy they need and place the order. “The UEI network could take care of the ordering, fulfillment and payment between the parties,” he said.
One doesn’t have to download several charging company apps to place the charging orders. All the orders could be made via buyer side apps like Whatsapp, UPI apps or even from the dashboard of an EV.
So far, Pulse Energy has partnered with ChargeZone and more than 20 charging providers. It plans to take the initiative nationally soon.
Akhil Jayaprakash, director of Pulse Energy, said its charging apps help 15,000 drivers daily and dispense 40,000 units daily. EV users can download any one of Pulse Energy’s applications like InstaCharge to access the entire network, he said.
Akshay Shekhar, chief executive, Kazam, said the company has a network of almost 200 charge point operators across the country.
“These are connected to Kazam’s cloud. We will enable these operators to become a part of UEI. We have close to 15,000 charging stations under direct management. These will become a part of UEI as well,” he said.
There is an incentive for all the participants, including the distribution company.
Energy startups, power utilities and other companies could come together as an open community to take this idea from concept to a full-fledged implementation with the support of existing or new policies on green energy of the participating states in India.
The simulation could also enable the possibility of accessing an idle battery on the UEI network that has green energy generated from solar rooftops, with a net meter that allows it to supply excess energy into the grid.
“In the simulation, Sheru on behalf of a local distribution company orchestrated the demand for green energy from EV charging operators like Pulse Energy or Kazam on one hand and the supply of green energy on the other by finding which batteries on the network are lying idle with stored green energy,” Nair said.
Turno made available second-life energy batteries that distribution companies could tap into for the supply of green energy.
Just like retail items are discoverable on ONDC along with the quantity and price, a customer can discover an available charging station, and the amount of available energy to buy from the station on the UEI.
Sheru is a tech platform for networking e-mobility, energy storage and renewables. Turno is a marketplace to buy commercial electric vehicles. Kazam is an EV charging station network.
The demonstration showed how EV charging station discovery and payments can be done on Beckn by using WhatsApp.
