Why your electric car could be the cure for blackouts

People often voice concern over the capability of the national grid and distribution network operators (DNOs – the people who actually deliver power to homes and businesses on a local level) to cope if EV numbers spiral.

But what if it worked in reverse, Autocar’s correspondent Jesse Crosse asks, where millions of EVs storing large amounts of power could give some back at peak times when it’s needed?

That’s what vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology is all about and it’s a term that’s starting to creep more widely into public awareness, helped by newer EVs that have something called ‘bi-directional charging’.

This technology enables EVs connected to a specialised charge point to put energy back into the electric grid, into a building or even into another car.

A trial called V2VNY (Vehicle 2 Volume eNergy Yield) invited businesses that want to make their fleets as green as possible to take part. The project is being led by sustainable transport specialist Hangar 19, in partnership with software specialist CrowdCharge and DriveElectric, an established electric vehicle leasing company.

Participants must have a minimum of two electric cars from a list of cars made by Genesis, Hyundai, Kia, or MG. The choice is based on which vehicles have V2G and have an electrical socket you can plug appliances in to.

The charging system is designed to work with vehicles plugged in for longer periods. This is to allow a big enough window for energy sharing in both directions. When a car is plugged in throughout the day, for example, there’s plenty of time for charge to be taken from the battery during peaks and replaced as necessary.

To that end, daily mileage allowances can be set manually in a smartphone app or a user can opt to let the AI function of the software do that for them, based on their daily travel patterns. In that case, the software displays a schedule of what it has calculated to avoid surprises. Longer trips can be set in a calendar to ensure a vehicle is always topped up.

Chargers can connect two cars at once and the system can give one car priority over the other if needed. That includes sharing charge between the batteries of the two cars.

V2G tech is starting to mature and has been undergoing trials for a number of years. In 2020, for instance, the Electric Nation project was pioneered by Western Power Distribution (a DNO) working with CrowdCharge. A hundred Nissan Leaf owners joined the trial to assess the effect V2G could have when many more EVs are on the streets in the future.