Imagine using your electric vehicle to power your home during a storm-induced power outage with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology due to the growth of electric vehicles and smart grid. Your vehicle may not be able to power your entire house, but it could most likely provide enough power to charge your phone, power the lights, and run your refrigerator. How? V2G technology.
What is Vehicle to Grid (V2G)?
In vehicle-to-grid technology, unused electricity is pulled into the grid from the car. In addition to supplying electricity during peak hours, V2G, also known as vehicle-grid integration (VGI), can also act as a backup power source when weather-dependent renewable sources do not work. An electric vehicle could provide a secondary source of power if necessary if a solar-powered home cannot generate electricity at night.
The use of this technology can contribute to the achievement of clean energy goals, such as achieving zero carbon emissions by 2045. It can also offer consumers an added benefit by potentially lowering the cost of owning electric vehicles. Vehicle owners can offset other costs by selling back excess power.
Real Life V2G
One of the only electric car models that is capable of bidirectional energy flow is the Nissan Leaf. Fermata Energy in Danville, VA is experimenting with V2G technology with Nissan Leafs. The car makes enough money to recover the charge of a DC fast charger while parked.
John Wheeler of Fermata Energy explains,
“We partnered with a small little utility in Virginia, and that allowed us to iterate very quickly on stuff.”
Basically, we need one car, one building, one charger… The electric inspector goes fishing with our electrician…Our initial use case has been simplified to one car, one building, and one charger. You park the car, it sits there, and you discharge it when the building load spikes…In some places, you can get a free car quickly.”
A power shortage caused by the Tohoku earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster left Japan in need of energy in 2011. Nissan used 66 Leafs to provide power until the grid stabilized in order to alleviate the power shortage. Additionally, Nissan sent an additional group of Leafs to Tokyo after Typhoon Faxai last month.
V2G is being used in the United Kingdom by Element Energy to help drivers save an average of $1,200 each year, increasing electric vehicle usage by 250,000 vehicles.
How about V2X?
It includes many different service use cases, including vehicle-to-home (V2H), vehicle-to-building (V2B), and vehicle-to-load (V2L). Besides V2G, there is another abbreviation often mentioned in connection with bi-directional charging – V2X. V2X means vehicle-to-everything.
There are a range of abbreviations for different types of EV batteries, depending on whether you want to use it at home or at work. Your EVs can help you even when you don’t feed electricity back to the grid.
Essentially, V2G is a smart charging system that allows us to control the charging power of an electric vehicle in a way that enables us to increase and decrease it according to our needs. Smart charging is also known as V1G charging.
In addition to vehicle-to-grid, vehicle-to-grid is also capable of temporarily reversing the flow of energy from car batteries to the grid to balance fluctuations in consumption and production.
Why should you care about V2G?
The V2G system allows us to balance more and more renewable energy in order to mitigate climate change. Decarbonisation, energy efficiency, and electrification are the three things we need to achieve in order to deal with the climate crisis.
Decarbonisation is the process by which renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, are deployed in energy production. Energy storage presents a problem in this context. In contrast to fossil fuels, which release energy when burned, wind and solar power work differently.
We must either use renewable energy on-demand or store it for future use. As renewable energy enters our energy system more and more, it creates greater volatility and the need to balance or store renewable energy in new ways.
The transportation sector is also reducing its carbon footprint, as evidenced by the number of EVs on our roads, which is steadily increasing. In 2022, 14% of all cars sold were electric, while that number was only 5% in 2020.
As there is no additional hardware required for electric vehicles, they are by far the most cost-effective form of energy storage available. With V2G, the battery capacity can be utilized up to 10 times more efficiently than it would be with smart charging. With vehicle-to-grid technology, we can maximize the energy use of existing vehicles.
EVs are expected to be more than 250 million in 2030, which means there will be around 250 million tiny energy storage devices on wheels. These batteries are expected to be sufficient to meet the short-term energy storage demand by 2030.
How does V2G work?
V2G works best in practice when EV drivers are able to make a trip to work and back whenever they need it, for example.
An EV driver must be able to communicate when he or she wants to unplug the car and how full the battery should be at the time. This is the basic requirement of V2G and any other charging technology.
With V2G, grid balancing can continue the entire time a vehicle is connected, unlike smart charging in which it stops when the battery is fully charged.
As a result of the vehicle being plugged into a charger for an extended period, private charging is ideal for V2G. This allows the charging and discharging to be controlled at times most convenient to the vehicle.
How does electricity move?
To begin with, we need to understand how electricity operates in the grid. It always travels to the nearest location where it is needed in the shortest amount of time. By simply pushing electricity from the car’s battery back to the grid, a vehicle-to-grid charger continues to get the electricity to the nearest location where it is needed by continuing its journey.
The benefits of Vehicle-to-Grid
For real estate
EVs can be charged efficiently anywhere with features such as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) and Dynamic Load Management (DLM). Before installing a charging station, review the building’s electrical system. Using car batteries to balance electricity demand reduces spikes in consumption and saves on costly grid expansions.
For the power grid
Increasing power demand can overload grids. V2G charging stations ease grid congestion and reduce infrastructure upgrades because they help balance electricity. In addition to stabilizing the grid, V2G also manages wind and solar power, which is volatile as renewable energy grows. In the absence of V2G, companies need to invest in expensive, carbon-emitting reserve plants to supply energy. With V2G, companies can reduce energy costs and improve energy flow.
For fleets and EV drivers
It is possible for fleet operators to earn extra revenue by discharging their EV batteries and balancing the energy grid by joining V2G programs. In case of an outage or shortage, fleets can use their vehicles as temporary energy storage. In addition to making V2G financially appealing to fleets and consumers, individual EV drivers can also store excess energy and sell it to the grid.
How will vehicle-to-grid become mainstream?
We’re soon about to see V2G solutions commercially available. But there is a lot of development to be done before this technology becomes the mainstream energy management tool.
Today, smart grid technology is one of the most exciting frontiers in electrical engineering. In addition to stimulating stagnant economies and transforming how electricity is delivered around the world, environmentally-friendly smart grid technology has the potential to stimulate stagnant economies through the use of greener technologies and alternative fuels.
A. V2G technology and devices
It is already possible to purchase V2G chargers in a variety of sizes and shapes. A variety of hardware providers have already created models that support vehicle-to-grid technology.
There are V2G chargers with charging capacity up to 15 kW today, and even more will be available in the future. The typical maximum charging power is around 11 kW, which meets the needs of most home and workplace charging applications.
Since the car’s own unidirectional on-board chargers can be bypassed, vehicle-to-grid charging devices are DC (direct current) chargers. In addition, some vehicles have come equipped with DC chargers that can be connected to AC chargers. Today, however, this is not a common solution.
As technology matures, it will be possible to improve devices that already exist.
B. V2G compatible vehicles
In the meantime, CHAdeMo electric vehicle OEMs such as Nissan have outpaced other car manufacturers by introducing V2G-compliant car models. With its new Outlander PHEV and iMiev models, Mitsubishi has also joined the V2G club and can discharge all Nissan Leafs and Nissan e-NV200s with vehicle-to-grid stations.
Peugeot iON and Citroen C0 are two other models with V2G capabilities.
In the near future, OEMs will hopefully be able to support vehicle-to-grid technologies, so they’ll be able to join the club of vehicle-to-grid compatibles.
VW is also implementing ISO-15118 in their vehicles, with Ford planning to implement V2G with their F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck and Hyundai with their IONIQ 5.
By 2025, CCS compatibility will be commercialized.
C. European standards that make EV charging easier
It is not surprising that the V2G market is projected to reach over $5 billion by 2024, as demand response markets in Europe are growing at over 20% per year. By 2024, V2G is expected to dominate the market with over 20% growth.
Presently, V2G is still primarily a project-based business, however this will soon change. V2G companies will emerge in increasing numbers as V2G becomes commercially profitable.
The European ISO 15118-20 standard enables bi-directional vehicle-to-grid charging and multiple vehicles to exchange power in both directions.
It follows that in the upcoming years, EV batteries will have a significant increase in capacity for energy management due to standards such as these.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is vehicle-to-grid and grid to vehicle technology?
An electric vehicle (EV)’s battery can be used to supply energy back to the grid through a technology called vehicle-to-grid, or V2G. By using V2G technology, an EV battery can be discharged based on different signals – like energy production or consumption.
Which EV supports V2G?
Ford F-150 Lightning (V2G)
Genesis GV60 (V2L)
Hyundai Ioniq 5 (V2L)
Hyundai Ioniq 6 (V2L)
Kia EV6 (V2L)
Kia Niro (V2L)
Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV (V2L)
Nissan Leaf (V2H, V2G)
What is vehicle-to-grid V2G technology would allow electric cars ___?
V2G is a technology that allows batteries of electric vehicles to serve as mobile storage and provide electricity to the grid.
What is vehicle-to-grid V2G and vehicle to home V2H?
An electric vehicle to grid (V2G) allows electricity to be pulled from EVs and then sent back to the grid when more electricity is needed. An electric vehicle to home (V2H) allows electricity to be drawn from the house and used in other devices.
