Can vehicle-to-grid (V2G) connectivity boost Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) uptake?

The V2G business model appears to be something of a chicken-or-egg proposition for providers of the technology.

On the one hand, it can defray some of the costs of purchasing a BEV for fleets and individuals; on the other hand, the technology requires a large EV fleet to provide returns on investments for many of the stakeholders. A 2019 trial in Denmark by the V2G provider Nuvve found that a fleet of 10 Nissan e-NV200 electric vans carried out 100 hours of V2G over two years, selling 130,000kWh to the grid. That amounted to earnings of €1,860 ($2,001) a year. “Multiplied by a couple of million vehicles, you could be looking at a $20-70Bn industry by unlocking these resources,” Nuvve’s European project manager Paige Mullen told a V2G workshop in Nottingham.

Cost benefits also apply to individual EV owners. According to GlobeNewsWire, vehicle owners might earn $454, $394, or $318 per year, depending on the length of their average daily trip “and assuming sufficient governmental support”. In fact, governments have already begun supporting V2G. For example, in 2018 the UK, which says it is still committed to banning the sale of new ICE powered vehicles by 2030, provided some £30M ($38.82M) to 21 V2G projects, “to pay for research and design and development, with the aim of exploring and trialing both the technology itself and commercial opportunities”.

In addition, London has so far provided another £22M to support two phases of research on V2X, “to address barriers to enabling energy flexibility from bi-directional electric vehicle charging” and to support “small scale V2X bi-directional charging demonstrations”. The UK is also initiating long-term V2G programs to develop large-scale V2G trials, such as the PowerLoop consortium. This project will install 135 V2G chargers and, over the course of three years, collect data on cost reduction and grid support.

Local governments are also involved, especially those with a strong ‘green’ agenda, such as the US state of California. In the summer of 2022, the state instituted an Emergency Load Reduction Program, which pays $2 per kWh for V2G and announced a decision to allow submetering EV chargers, which is an important step towards building a V2G market.

To read the complete article, visit TU-Automotive.