Imagine a huge battery pack on wheels sitting outside on your driveway. It can drive you wherever you want, power your home, then make you money by selling excess power back to the grid. Sounds like science-fiction? It’s not, it’s happening right now. And it’s called vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology.
Vehicle-to-grid technology – also referred to as ‘V2G’ – is the process of feeding the energy stored in an electric vehicle’s (EV) battery back into the National Grid. Why bother? To help boost the Grid’s energy supply at times of peak demand. Oh, and it’s a nice little earner too. V2G is a game-changing new technology that, along with smart charging, has the potential to transform the energy system as we know it.
V2G charging refers to the 2-way flow of electrical energy from the grid, through a specially-built charger into an EV, and back again. As an EV owner, you can choose to charge your car up from the grid – or sell stored energy in your car back to the grid.
V2G chargers are connected to Kaluza, an intelligent software platform, that enables EV smart charging. This pioneering platform allows you to schedule your EV charging through the Web-app. It decides when to import and export your EV’s energy through the V2G charger, at the best times for you and the grid.
This means there’s no need for our customers to worry about when to charge – Kaluza’s smart system does it all for you. So your car always charges on greener and cheaper energy, and is ready to drive whenever you need it.
Through the Web-app, V2G users are able to:
Over the last few months, Modern-Power ™ has been running a nationwide V2G trial. It’s funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) and the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), in partnership with Innovate UK.
Along with Kaluza, we’ve installed 320 bi-directional EV chargers, manufactured in the UK by Indra Renewable Technologies. With V2G tariff, EV drivers have saved up to £800 a year on their bills. Not a bad return for just letting your car sit on your drive!
One trialist, David from Luton, said, “90% of the time my car is sat doing nothing. You have a huge energy storage device sitting on your drive. You’ve invested all that money in a car, so why not use it more of the time, rather than have it sitting doing nothing.” Spot on, David!
On a typical day, David charges his car when the grid is off-peak, at 15p/kWh. He drives to work and back, then plugs in again at home. In the evening, David and his family use the car battery to power the lights and various appliances and devices in his home for a few hours.
Then at bedtime, any excess power is exported from his vehicle back to the grid when prices are at a premium, 31p/kWh. David has made a profit of almost £900 in a year. Seems it’s not only his charger that’s smart!